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Frederic  Bancroft 

1860-1945 


JOSEPH    WARD 
OF   DAKOTA 


REV.  JOSEPH  WARD,  D.D. 

Founder  and  First  President  of  Yankton  College 


JOSEPH    WARD 
OF    DAKOTA 


GEORGE    HARRISON   DURAND 


THE    PILGRIM     PRESS 

^OBTOnI        new  YOrtF         CHlrAO<> 


p 


Copyright,    1913 

BY 

LUTHER    H.    GARY 


^^</^,-^,- 


All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good,  shall  exist; 

Not  its  semblance,  but  itself:  no  beauty,   nor  good,  nor 
power 
Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives  for  the  melodist 

When  eternity  affirms  the  conception  of  an  hour. 
The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for  earth  too  hard, 

The  passion  that  left  the  ground  to  lose  itself  in  the  sky, 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard  : 

Enough  that  he  heard  it  once ;  we  shall  hear  it  by  and  by 

Browning: —    Abt  Vogler" 


NOTE  ON  SOURCES 


NOTE  ON  SOURCES 


The  Memorial  Number  of  the  Yankton  Student,  issued  upon 
the  occasion  of  Dr.  Ward's  death,  gathered  together  a  group 
of  articles  on  Dr.  Ward  by  those  of  his  contemporaries  who 
were  most  competent  to  describe  his  character  and  work. 
These  valuable  articles  have  been  the  basis  of  much  that  has 
been  said  and  written  from  time  to  time  about  Joseph  Ward, 
and  they  have  been  freely  drawn  upon  for  the  present  volume. 
I  have  been  able  to  bring  to  bear  a  large  amount  of  additional 
material,  and  have  endeavored  to  present  a  narrative  of  his 
life  in  due  relation  to  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  particularly 
the  stirring  days  of  the  pioneer  period  in  Dakota.  It  has  been 
my  aim  to  faithfully  seek  out  the  facts  from  every  available 
source,  recognizing  as  I  do  the  historical  importance  of  the 
subject. 

Some  of  the  more  important  sources  of  information  I  wish 
to  mention  in  this  note. 

A  Report  of  the  Services  of  the  Seventy-fifth  Anniversary 
of  the  Church  at  Perry  Centre,  N.  Y.  Volumes  of  the  Philo- 
matfiean  Mirror,  the  student  periodical  of  Phillips  Academy. 
Andover,  Massachusetts.  Annual  Reports  of  the  Association 
of  Congregational  Churches  of  Dakota  and  South  Dakota. 
Files  of  the  Yankton  Student,  especially  the  Memorial  Number 
above  referred  to.  Files  of  the  Yankton  Press  and  Dahotan,  the 
Sioux  Valley  Neics  (covering  the  first  statehood  convention  at 
Canton),  the  Monthly  South  Dakotan,  the  Northwestern  Congirga- 
tionalist,  the  Advance,  the  Congregationalist^  the  Christian  Union: 
and  the  Andover  Review  (including  the  report  of  the  "Great 
Debate"  at  Des  Moines  in  1886).  A  number  of  anniversary 
sermons  by  Dr.  Ward,  and  other  reminiscent  sketches  by  him- 
self and  Mrs.  Ward  on  early  days  in  Yankton.  An  article  on 
"The    Mother    Church"    by    Deacon    Ephraim    Miner    in    the 

3 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

Monthly  South  Dakotan.  Professor  W.  J.  McMurtry's  valuable 
History  of  Yankton  College,  particularly  chapters  covering 
the  founding  of  the  College  and  the  years  of  Dr.  Ward'* 
presidency. 

For  the  account  of  Dr.  Ward's  connection  with  the  state- 
hood movement  and  the  educational  system  of  South  Dakota 
I  have  had  much  recourse  to  files  of  South  Dakota  newspapers 
and  periodicals  as  included  in  the  list  above  given.  Other 
important  sources  on  this  topic  have  been  as  follows:  Doane 
Robinson's  standard  work,  A  History  of  South  Dakota.  The 
publications  of  the  State  Historical  Society,  including  the 
volume  of  Constitutional  Debates,  and  the  Memoirs  of  Gen. 
W.  H.  H.  Beadle.  An  article  by  Gen.  Beadle  in  the  Monthly 
South  Dakotun  on  "The  Building  of  the  State,"  and  one  by 
Hon.  T.  H.  Coniff  on  "The  Convention  which  Made  the  Con- 
stitution." The  Memoirs  of  Major  Dollard.  Reports  and 
oflBcial  minutes  of  the  statehood  and  constitutional  conven- 
tions, and  other  contemporary  documents  relating  to  state- 
hood affairs.  Articles  in  the  Andover  Renew  by  Dr.  Joseph 
Ward  on  "The  Territorial  System  of  the  United  States,"  and 
"Government  Aid  to  Public  Education."  On  this  subject  of 
Dr.  Ward's  connection  with  public  affairs  in  South  Dakota 
I  have  had  very  kind  and  valuable  assistance  from  Gen. 
Beadle,  Judge  Bartlett  Tripp.  Hon.  Doane  Robinson,  Hon. 
Ephraim  Miner,  and  others. 

A  large  part  of  the  material  of  the  book  has  been  drawn 
from  sources  of  a  more  personal  nature;  personal  letters  to 
the  writer,  reminiscences  and  anecdotes,  files  of  old  corre- 
spondence, aud  the  like.  Material  of  this  sort  has  been  con- 
tributed by  Rev.  Dan  F.  Bradley,  D.D.,  of  Cleveland;  Rev.  De 
Witt  S.  Clark,  D.D.,  of  Salem,  Massachusetts;  Dr.  Charles  M. 
Sheldon,  of  Topeka;  Rev.  James  G.  Daugherty,  D.D.,  of 
Kansas  City;  Professor  John  T.  Shaw,  of  Oberlin;  Burton 
Payne  Gray,  Esq.,  of  Boston;  Mrs.  O.  H.  Carney,  of  Los 
Angeles:  Mrs.  Ephraim  Miner,  Hon.  George  W.  Kingsbury, 
and  Major  J.  R.  Hanson,  of  Yankton;  and  many  others. 

Most  important  of  all  has  been  the  aid  I  have  received 
relating  to  the  more  intimate  facts  of  Dr.  Ward's  life  from 
members  of  his  family — Mrs.  Ward,  Mrs.  Ethel  Ward  Gray, 


NOTE  ON  SOUKCES 

and  her  husband,  Mr.  Edward  Gray.  Mrs.  Ward,  before  her 
death  in  1908,  was  in  touch  with  the  project  of  a  biography 
of  her  husband,  and  gave  to  the  beginnings  of  the  work  her 
invaluable  assistance  and  encouragement.  Through  the 
friendship  and  trust  of  Mrs.  Gray  and  her  husband  I  have 
had  access  to  all  of  Dr.  Ward's  correspondence,  diaries,  jour- 
nals, and  personal  memoranda  of  every  kind.  The  most 
precious  and  sacred  part  of  this  store  of  material,  and  what 
has  meant  more  to  me  for  the  appreciation  of  Dr.  Ward's  life 
than  anything  else,  has  been  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Ward,  and 
hers  to  him,  written  chiefly  during  his  prolonged  periods  of 
absence  in  the  interests  of  the  College.  The  reading  of  these 
has  been  an  unspeakable  personal  privilege.  I  have  dealt 
with  them  in  the  spirit  of  reverence,  quoting  from  them  but 
sparingly  and  only  when  it  seemed  the  one  best  way  to  reveal 
essential  facts. 

G.  H.  DURAND. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Parentage  and  Boyhood 3 

II.  School  Days — Teaching  at  Wells- 
viLLE,  N.  Y. — Pioneering  in  Illi- 
nois          19 

III.  Phillips  Academy,  Andover    ...  31 

IV.  Brown     University    and    Andover 

Theological  Seminary    ....  45 

V.     Coming  to  Dakota 69 

VI.     Laying  Foundations 87 

VII.     In  Yankton  from  1873  to  1881      .     .  109 

VIII.     The  Founding  of  Yankton  College  127 

IX.     The  Struggle  for  Statehood      .     .  151 

X.     The  "Testing"  of  the  College  .     .  179 

XI.     Putting  Life  into  It 211 

XII.     Conclusion 235 


LIST  OP  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Rev.  Joseph  Ward,  D.D.,  Founder  and  first 
President  of  Yankton  College     Frontisfiece 

The  Old  Capitol  Building 75 

The  Yankton  Academy,  1872 97 

Steamboat  Days 110 

The    First    Congregational   Church   of 

Yankton 121 

Beginning  of  the  College,  Rented  Building 

used  in  i882-'83 139 

The  First  College  Building,  Erected  in  1883  144 

Mrs.  Joseph  Ward        185 

The  Ward  Home,  in  Yankton 236 


CHAPTER  I 
PARENTAGE   AND   BOYHOOD 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

CHAPTER  I 
PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

JOSEPH  WARD  was  a  Pilgrim  of  the  later  day. 
One  could  hardly  choose  a  better  example  of 
the  influence  of  the  New  England  Pilgrim 
spirit  in  the  development  of  the  nation  than  his 
life  and  work.  His  forefathers  were  of  pure  New 
England  stock,  and  the  history  of  the  family  line, 
in  successive  migrations  westward,  is  a  record  of 
civilizing  power.  The  first  of  them,  that  William 
Ward  who  settled  at  Sudbury,  Massachusetts,  be- 
fore 1637,  and  moved  afterwards  to  Marlboro,  far- 
ther into  the  wilderness,  was  representative  in 
the  General  Court  of  the  colony,  chairman  of  the 
selectmen  of  his  town,  and  deacon  of  the  Marl- 
boro church  at  its  organization.  A  great  grandson 
of  this  first  William  was  General  Artemus  Ward, 
first  commander-in-chief  of  the  Massachusetts 
forces  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  In  the  direct 
line  of  Joseph  Ward's  descent  was  Jemima  Allen, 
cousin  of  Col.  Ethan  Allen,  of  Vermont.  In  the 
successive  communities  where  his  forefathers 
dwelt — at  Sudbury,  at  Marlboro,  at  New  Marlboro 
on  the  western  slope  of  the  Berkshires,  and  finally 
at  Perry  Centre  in  the  "Genessee  Country"  of 
Western  New  York,  where  Joseph  Ward  was  born 

3 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

— the  Wards  were  invariably  people  of  conse- 
quence. They  form  a  noble  succession  of  strong 
men — representatives,  magistrates,  builders  of 
settlements,  defenders  of  liberty,  founders  of 
churches  and  schools.  Their  record  is  a  type  of  the 
victorious  progress  of  Pilgrim  civilization  from 
the  Atlantic  shore  westward  across  the  land.  And 
Joseph  Ward  in  his  own  character  and  life  work, 
as  missionary  pastor,  educator,  and  statesman, 
was  true  to  that  noble  inheritance.  He  was  alive 
to  this  historic  significance  of  his  own  work  in 
Dakota,  and  it  was  an  element  of  his  strength. 
Had  he  written  himself  the  history  of  his  life,  he 
would  have  laid  emphasis  upon  his  family  line, 
and  his  inheritance  of  the  spirit  and  ideals  of  the 
Pilgrims. 

Dr.  Jabez  Ward,  the  father  of  Joseph,  emi- 
grated with  others  of  his  kindred  from  New  Marl- 
boro, Massachusetts,  to  the  new  "Genessee  Coun- 
try" in  Western  New  York  in  1813,  settling  at  a 
place  called  Perry  Centre.  There  Joseph  Ward 
was  born.  May  5,  1838.  Soon  after  the  Wards 
settled  at  Perry  Centre,  the  Sheldons,  who  had 
been  neighbors  of  theirs  in  New  Marlboro  and 
were  already  connected  with  the  family  by  mar- 
riage, came  also,  and  other  New  England  families. 
In  fact  the  whole  earlier  movement  into  that  new- 
ly-opened land  of  promise  was  composed  mostly 
of  settlers  from  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts, 
the  region  being  more  accessible  to  them  than  to 
others,  lying  due  west  across  the  Hudson,  and  up 
the  valley  of  the  Mohawk.  So  the  community  at 
Perry  Centre,  like  many  another  in  the  "Genessee 

4 


PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

Country,"  was  begun  and  continued  in  the  faith 
and  manners  of  the  old  New  England  home.  They 
were  a  people  of  simple,  industrious  life,  pos- 
sessed of  the  patience,  the  energy,  and  the  thrift 
to  wrest  from  the  wilderness,  with  ox-teams  and 
primitive  farming  and  with  markets  far  away, 
a  livelihood  and  increasing  competence.  Theirs 
was  a  life  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking.  The 
toil  and  privation  of  pioneering  life  bred  no  dull- 
ness or  coarseness  in  minds  like  theirs.  Fine 
ideals  of  moral  and  religious  culture,  a  spirit  of 
independent  thinking,  and  an  inquisitive,  eager, 
and  aspiring  frame  of  mind  were  to  be  found  in  al- 
most every  home.  Theological  controversies  were 
common  in  those  days,  and  the  knotty  problems 
of  election  and  predestination,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  and  the  divinity  of  Christ  were  familiar 
matter  in  sermons,  in  Sunday  School  teaching, 
and  in  contributions  to  the  weekly  newspapers; 
and  the  discussion  of  such  questions  formed  the 
table-talk  in  many  a  household  of  the  community. 
That  kind  of  thinking,  lifeless  and  impractical 
as  it  may  seem  to-day,  was  the  nourishment  which 
produced  the  strong  minds  and  great  souls  of  the 
days  gone  by. 

Joseph  Ward's  sister  Sarah,  who  has  written 
an  account  of  the  theology  of  the  Perry  Centre 
community,  tells  also  of  how  carefully  the  usages 
of  their  former  New  England  home  were  main- 
tained. "Some  of  these  customs,"  she  declares, 
"the  strict  'keeping'  of  Saturday  night  as  the  be- 
ginning of  holy  time,  the  nightly  ringing  of  the 
curfew,  the  tolling  of  the  bell  on  the  death  of  any 

5 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

one  in  the  parish — all  these  were  more  punctil- 
iously observed  than  in  many  a  Massachusetts 
town."  Above  all,  they  "loved  and  frequented 
the  house  of  God."  The  little  company  of  pio- 
neers at  Perry  Centre  founded  a  church  the  year 
after  their  coming,  and  Ralph  Ward,  the  grand- 
father, and  Jabez  Ward,  the  father  of  Joseph 
were  original  members  of  it.  Jabez  Ward  was 
deacon  of  that  church  from  its  beginning  in  1814 
until  his  death  in  1842.  Churchgoing  was  serious 
business  in  those  days.  They  tell  of  the  services 
being  held  at  first  in  the  log  homes  of  the  set- 
tlers, then  in  Deacon  Howard's  barn,  and  after 
that  for  a  time  in  the  Taylor  schoolhouse  west  of 
the  Centre,  and  of  how  Deacon  Sheldon,  in  the 
struggling  days  when  the  church  had  no  "stated 
supply,"  would  read  one  of  Dr.  Emmons' 
strong  Calvanistic  sermons.  They  tell  how 
families,  including  all  the  children  down  to 
the  babe  in  arms,  in  all  weathers,  "drawn  to 
church  by  ox-team,  came  to  stay  all  day,  bringing 
with  them  hay  for  their  oxen  and  dinner  for  them- 
selves. They  had  service  in  the  forenoon  and  in 
the  afternoon,  with  Sunday  School  in  between." 
Prizes  were  given  in  Sunday  School  for  commit- 
ting to  memory  the  greatest  number  of  verses 
from  the  Bible,  and  for  a  child  to  recite  the  whole 
book  of  Matthew,  it  seems,  was  none  too  much  for 
the  winning  of  the  prize. 

Joseph  Ward's  father.  Dr.  Jabez  Ward,  was  a 
marked  character  of  the  community,  and  he  fig- 
ures largely  in  the  reminiscences  of  old  timers  of 
Perry  Centre.    He  was  the  "beloved  physician"  of 

6 


PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

the  settlement,  and  a  godly  man,  who  ministered 
to  the  souls  as  well  as  the  bodies  of  his  patients. 
Before  coming  West  he  had  been  licensed  to  prac- 
tice by  the  Connecticut  Medical  Society,  and  "ap- 
proved relative  to  his  knowledge  of  physic  and 
surgery."  The  profession  of  doctor  in  a  country 
community  in  those  days  was  no  sinecure.  Dr. 
Ward's  old  faded  account  book  reveals  a  life  of 
painstaking  toil  for  very  meagre  returns.  After 
the  manner  of  country  doctors  he  not  only  pre- 
scribed for  his  patients,  but  supplied  them  with 
medicines  laboriously  prepared  according  to  old- 
fashioned  pharmacy.  These  he  dispensed  at  tri- 
fling charges.  The  doctor's  fee  for  ushering  a  child 
into  the  world  was  three  dollars,  and  the  service 
would  frequently  involve  a  journey  of  twenty 
miles  on  horseback  at  night  and  in  the  storm.  The 
settlement  of  accounts  would  often  be  by  a  cheese, 
or  a  quarter  of  beef,  or  a  load  of  hay.  In  his  long 
years  of  busy  practice  he  never  accumulated  much 
earthly  treasure.  It  is  recorded  that  "his  views  of 
the  sanctity  of  the  Sabbath  were  such  that  if  he 
made  charges  for  professional  visits  on  that  day, 
the  avails  were  cast  into  the  treasury  of  the 
Lord." 

The  Perry  Centre  people  were  always  devoted 
to  the  cause  of  temperance,  and  Dr.  Ward  was  the 
chief  promoter  of  a  temperance  society  at  that 
place,  which  held  regular  meetings  and  discus- 
sions. A  copy  is  preserved  of  one  of  his  temper- 
ance addresses,  which  reflects  somewhat  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  old  time  oratory,  yet  reveals 
the  force  of  great  earnestness;  the  Scriptures  are 

7 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

his  perpetual  source  of  example  and  metaphor. 
While  Dr.  Ward's  mind  was  chiefly  practical,  and 
the  temperance  cause  appealed  to  him  on  this 
ground,  he  was  a  thinker  in  theology  also,  and 
discoursed  and  wrote  much  upon  the  theological 
questions  of  the  day.  His  position  was  doubtless 
as  orthodox  as  that  of  any  other  pillar  of  the 
church;  yet  he  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  more 
than  usual  tolerance  in  such  matters.  One  of  the 
early  schoolmasters  of  the  place,  who  had  fallen 
somewhat  under  the  ban  of  the  church  for  liberal 
views  in  theology  and  other  subjects,  turned  to 
Dr.  Ward  in  his  trouble  and  received  his  friend- 
ship and  support.  The  young  man  proved  to  be 
w^orthy  of  confidence;  soon  after  he  founded  a  pri- 
vate academy  at  Perry  Centre,  where  he  taught 
successfully  for  many  years,  and  in  all  recollec- 
tions of  the  old  times  his  character  and  ability 
are  held  in  high  esteem. 

A  pleasant  picture  of  the  good  Dr.  Ward  is 
given  by  one  of  the  old  Perry  Centre  boys.  Dr.  E. 
A.  Sheldon,  President  of  the  State  Normal  School 
at  Oswego,  N.  Y.,  in  a  reminiscence,  written  long 
after,  of  the  old  home  church  and  community. 

"Among  those  (pillars  of  the  church)  who  made 
a  strong  impression  on  my  young  life  was  Dr. 
Jabez  Ward,  one  of  the  original  organizers  of  the 
church.  He  was  our  family  physician,  as  he  was 
of  nearly  all  the  families  in  town.  He  was  a  man 
of  marked  and  rare  traits  of  character.  He  may 
be  justly  termed  a  unique  man.  His  duplicate  it 
would  be  hard  to  find.  He  was  a  cheerful,  and  we 
might  almost  say  a  jolly  man.    His  best  remedies 

8 


PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

for  the  sick  were  not  to  be  found  in  his  saddle 
bags.  I  cannot  say  that  I  ever  enjoyed  the  latter, 
with  its  unswallowable  pills  and  picra,  but  I  was 
willing  to  endure  them  for  the  sake  of  the  visit 
from  one  whose  presence  was  such  pleasant  and 
wholesome  medicine  for  the  soul  and  body.  He 
cut  an  odd  figure  on  his  old  horse  as  he  threw  his 
arms  up  and  down  and  his  heels  out  and  in,  as  if 
in  frantic  effort  to  wake  an  animal  that  appeared 
to  be  in  a  jogging  slumber.  I  am  sure  that  both 
horse  and  rider  took  many  naps  on  the  road.  So 
thoroughly  was  the  horse  habituated  to  a  certain 
gait,  that  any  ordinary  nap  would  not  in  the  least 
interfere  with  his  measured  step.  The  rider  often 
fell  from  his  horse  in  his  sleep,  but  he  was  too 
much  of  a  philosopher  ever  to  be  hurt  by  such 
falls.  He  didn't  trust  to  saddle  girths.  He  always 
went  to  the  ground  like  a  bag  of  sand  and  his 
saddle  with  him,  with  no  harm  to  wind  or  limb. 
The  only  harm  that  ever  followed  was  the  trouble 
of  throwing  on  the  saddle  and  leading  the  horse 
to  the  fence  and  mounting.  His  happy  repartees 
made  him  an  agreeable  companion  to  old  and 
young.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  affections  and 
deep  religious  feeling,  and  his  influence  for  good 
was  felt  in  every  home  he  visited,  as  well  as  in  the 
church  which  he  ever  served  as  an  officer." 

The  story  that  is  told  in  connection  with  the 
last  illness  of  Dr.  Ward  is  characteristic  of  his 
whole  life  of  service  and  sacrifice.  He  was  seized 
with  pneumonia,  perhaps  the  result  of  exposure 
on  some  errand  of  mercy,  and  lay  upon  his  sick 
bed  in  serious  condition.    Two  young  men  of  the 

9 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

neighborhood  were  sitting  up  with  him  at  night, 
and  as  the  hours  dragged  on  they  fell  asleep,  and 
slept  so  well  that  they  did  not  hear  a  knock  at  the 
door.  The  sick  physician  arose  and  went  to  an- 
swer the  knock.  It  was  a  messenger  for  the  doc- 
tor, some  patient  of  his  a  mile  or  so  away.  The 
case  was  urgent;  the  family  were  unwilling  to 
risk  the  new  and  untried  practitioner  who  had  re- 
cently come;  they  wanted  "the  old  doctor"  whom 
they  knew.  Perhaps  Jabez  Ward  did  not  appre- 
ciate his  own  danger;  at  all  events  the  lifelong 
habit  of  ready  service  and  the  impulse  of  compas- 
sion were  strong  within  him.  He  left  the  house, 
his  own  watchers  still  sleeping,  attended  the  case 
with  skill  and  success  (another  new  child),  and  re- 
turned, the  watchers  still  undisturbed,  to  his  own 
bed.  When  they  awoke  with  the  morning  light 
their  patient  was  worse.  His  malady,  doubtless 
aggravated  by  his  midnight  escapade,  ran  a 
speedy  course,  and  within  two  days  he  died. 

When  this  event  occurred  the  boy  Joseph  was 
only  five  years  old.  In  after  years  he  came  to  feel 
that  it  had  been  a  great  loss  to  him  not  to  know 
more  of  that  father.  There  were  three  other  chil- 
dren in  the  family:  his  older  sister,  Sarah,  who 
became  the  wife  of  the  Rev.  Stewart  Sheldon  and 
the  mother  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  M.  Sheldon;  an 
older  brother,  Butler,  who  became  a  prominent 
banker  at  Le  Roy,  not  far  away;  and  a  younger 
brother,  Cullen,  who  died  early. 

The  widowed  mother  had  been  already  for  three 
years  a  helpless  invalid,  and  so  continued  until 
released  by  death  nine  years  later.     She  was  a 

10 


PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

woman  of  rare  character.  Her  maiden  name  was 
Aurilla  Tufts.  Her  ancestors  on  both  sides  had 
been  "driven  by  religious  persecutions  from  Scot- 
land to  the  North  of  Ireland,  coming  from  there 
to  New  England  at  an  early  date."  Her  family 
had  come  from  Vermont  to  the  "Genessee  Coun- 
try," settling  finally  at  Perry  Centre.  It  was  un- 
der the  very  beautiful  influence  of  this  mother 
that  Joseph  Ward's  character  was  developed  up 
to  his  fifteenth  year.  The  very  habit  of  his  daily 
attention  to  the  comfort  of  the  invalid,  and  of 
watching  over  her  life  of  pain  and  increasing  help- 
lessness, bred  in  him  a  tenderness  and  gentleness 
like  a  woman's,  and  thoughtfulness  beyond  his 
years.  The  mother's  disease  was  incurable  (heart 
trouble),  and  as  the  weeks  and  months  passed  by 
her  lease  of  life  was  always  precarious.  The 
sense  of  that  perpetual  shadow  of  death,  with  the 
solemn  thought  of  the  other  world  so  continually 
near  that  bedside,  must  have  wrought  a  deep  im- 
pression on  the  mind  of  the  boy.  It  is  not  un- 
likely that  the  singular  experience  of  these  years 
had  much  to  do  w^ith  establishing  in  him  that  feel- 
ing of  immortality,  always  so  vivid  and  clear, 
which  was  one  of  his  marked  traits. 

Sister  Sarah,  upon  whom  fell  chief  responsibil- 
ity for  the  care  of  the  mother  and  the  younger 
children  during  those  years,  has  told  of  the  com- 
panionship between  mother  and  son,  and  of  Jo- 
seph's early  reading  and  education  under  his 
mother's  direction. 

"Warm-hearted  and  affectionate,  he  became 
at  once,"  she  says,  "the  most  loving  and  de- 
ll 


JOSEPH  WARD  OP  DAKOTA 

voted  companion  of  the  sweet  and  patient  invalid, 
and  he  was  never  more  happy  than  when  allowed 
to  render  her  some  little  service.  The  bond  of  sym- 
pathy between  them  was  very  strong  and  her 
wishes  were  his  law.  It  was  very  beautiful  to  see 
how  perfect  was  the  obedience  he  rendered  her, 
so  that  to  do  anything  without  her  permission  was 
almost  never  thought  of.  During  all  those  years, 
until  the  little  boy  of  five  became  a  lad  of  four- 
teen, only  one  act  of  disobedience  is  recalled,  and 
this  committed  under  great  temptation,  and  re- 
pented of  almost  in  the  doing.  Yet  so  conscien- 
tious was  the  child  that  he  could  not  rest  till  he 
had  come  with  penitent  tears  to  his  mother's  bed- 
side and  accepted  the  penalty  of  his  wrongdoing. 

"It  was  a  very  rare  degree  of  wisdom,"  Sarah 
continues,  "that  was  given  to  this  mother  in  her 
time  of  need,  and  her  weakness  of  body  only 
served  to  quicken  her  intellectual  and  spiritual 
faculties.  All  household  affairs  were  discussed 
in  'mother's  room,'  and  all  plans  for  work  and 
play  were  brought  to  her  for  approval.  Much  of 
Joseph's  reading  was  done  as  he  sat  by  her  bed- 
side, ready  at  any  moment  to  drop  his  book  and 
give  the  mother  needed  attention." 

This  reading,  as  Sister  Sarah  has  described  it, 
was  sufficient  in  quantity,  and  supreme  in  quality 
— although  the  world  of  those  days  never  dreamed 
of  such  a  flood  of  juvenile  literature  as  is  offered 
to  the  boys  and  girls  of  our  time.  Children  of  that 
day,  having  fewer  books,  read  the  same  one  many 
times,  and  the  spirit  of  literature  certainly  thrived 
in  the  generations  so  nourished.     Bible  reading 

12 


PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

and  a  great  deal  of  it  went  without  saying  in 
every  Puritan  household.  But  the  Ward's  pos- 
sessed a  modest  library  at  home,  and  there  was 
access  to  the  circulating  library  of  the  district 
school,  "well  supplied,"  Sarah  relates,  "with 
standard  works,  solid  and  substantial.  The  de- 
partment of  fiction  contained  'Robinson  Crusoe,' 
and  'Swiss  Family  Robinson,'  with  possibly  one  or 
two  other  volumes  of  lesser  interest  and  value, 
but  these  were  first  in  point  of  attraction,  and 
they  were  read  and  reread  as  often  as  they  could 
be  caught  hold  of  in  their  circulating  rounds. 
Josephus'  'History,'  taken  from  this  library, 
was  read  by  Joseph  before  he  was  eight  years 
old;  and  Milton's  'Paradise  Lost'  and  Rollins' 
'Histories'  he  had  devoured  at  that  early  period. 
The  word  'devoured'  is  used  advisedly,  for  it  was 
in  just  this  way  that  he  disposed  of  the  mental 
food  that  came  within  his  reach.  And  in  remark- 
able degree,  with  him,  to  read  a  book  was  to 
know  and  remember  it.  It  was  in  large  part  this 
ability  to  appropriate  and  retain  what  he  read 
that  gave  him  in  later  years  so  accurate  a 
knowledge  of  widely  different  subjects." 

In  all  this  period  of  the  boy's  awakening  in- 
tellect the  influence  of  the  mother  was  fine  and 
stimulating.  Her  own  mind  had  received  no 
great  advantages  of  school  training,  yet  she  had 
inherited  and  acquired  a  sweet  refinement  of 
thought  and  manner  and  an  appreciation  of 
poetry,  which  represents  the  beauty  which  was  by 
no  means  absent  at  any  time  from  good  Puritan 
homes.    She  was  known  in  her  day  for  a  distinct 

13 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

"literary  turn.''  She  loved  to  commit  her 
thoughts  to  paper,  whether  in  letters,  or  diaries, 
or,  occasionally,  in  verses  done  with  quaint  pro- 
priety and  taste,  and  revealing  the  pure  and 
saintly  spirit  that  was  hers.  It  is  said  that  her 
letters  "read  like  sermons,"  and  were  "full  of 
piety."  Shortly  before  her  death  she  made  a  gift 
of  a  purse  to  her  eldest  son,  Butler,  accompanied 
by  the  following  note  of  advice,  which  the  family 
has  treasured  ever  since: 

"My  dear  Son, — 

"On  presenting  you  this  purse  I  have  two  re- 
quests to  make:  first,  that  you  never  put  into  it 
the  avails  of  dishonest  gain;  secondly,  that 
you  never  draw  from  its  resources  less  or  more 
to  expend  upon  an  object  which  the  Word  of  God 
and  your  own  conscience  cannot  approve.  Re- 
member you  are  a  steward,  and  for  whatever  of 
this  world's  goods  are  entrusted  to  your  care  you 
will  soon  be  called  to  account.  That  the  blessing 
of  God  may  rest  upon  you  is  the  prayer  of 
"Your  affectionate  Mother, 

A.  W." 

His  boyhood  training,  and  especially  the  in- 
fluence of  his  mother,  was  the  foundation  of  that 
unaffected  refinement  and  good  breeding  which 
made  Joseph  Ward  an  agreeable  guest  in  the 
best  of  companies,  and  recognized  always  as  a 
true  gentleman.  The  saying  is  preserved  of  a  cer- 
tain teamster,  who  used  to  drive  his  regular  trip 
through  Perry  Centre,  and  was  subject  to  perse- 
cution by  numerous  youngsters  along  his  route. 

14 


PARENTAGE  AND  BOYHOOD 

To  the  wholesale  anathema  which  he  pronounced 
upon  all  such,  Butler  and  Joseph  Ward  were 
shining  exceptions.  He  "never  had  no  sass  from 
Widow  Ward's  boys,"  he  said. 

There  is  not  lacking  Joseph  Ward's  own  testi- 
mony as  to  the  exceptional  character  of  his  boy- 
hood environment,  and  what  it  meant  to  his  after 
life.  "I  think  of  that  old  home  church,"  he  writes, 
"as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  churches  in  our 
country,  I  got  my  theology  long  before  I  knew 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  theological  seminary, 
from  my  mother  first,  then  from  Deacon  Howard 
and  Mrs.  Skinner  in  the  Sabbath  School,  then 
from  those  who  used  to  come  to  our  house  during 
the  interval  between  the  morning  and  the  after- 
noon services — the  two  Sheldons,  Horace  and 
Eleazer;  the  Butlers,  and  others.  Then  the  work 
done  by  the  same  men  and  women  in  the  Acad- 
emy and  other  lines  of  education  is  coming  to 
the  surface  all  the  time  in  mv  work  in  school  and 
college  in  South  Dakota.  .  .  .  I  do  not  know 
how  much  I  owe  to  that  church  and  home,  for  it  is 
a  constant  revelation  to  me  as  I  am  all  the  time 
drawing  on  that  early  experience.  As  long  as 
I  live  I  shall  look  back  there  and  say  it  was  in 
Perry  Centre  that  I  got  all  my  education  that  was 
most  helpful." 

Dr.  Edward  Sheldon,  already  quoted,  likewise 
expressing  his  appreciation  of  the  Perry  Centre 
of  his  boyhood,  writes :  "The  Perry  Centre  church 
and  community  have  always  seemed  to  me  phe- 
nomenal. I  remember  never  to  have  seen  there  a 
drunken  man,  rarely  an  idle  or  a  shiftless  man,  or 

15 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

even  a  profane  man  or  Sabbath-breaker.  I  have 
certainly  never  known  a  more  intelligent  and  ex- 
emplary people." 

In  such  surroundings,  where  church,  and  com- 
munity spirit,  and  home  circumstances  all  com- 
bined to  impress  the  mind  of  the  growing  boy  with 
thoughts  of  duty,  and  solemn  faith,  and  of  the 
eternities  always  near,  there  nevertheless  sprang 
up  in  him  most  richly  the  qualities  proper  to 
youth  and  a  pleasant  world.  The  sense  of  humor, 
in  which  he  was  always  delightful,  had  been  born 
in  him  and  was  a  marked  trait  of  those  years.  He 
was  particularly  companionable  and  made  friends 
easily.  "A  hale  fellow,  well  met,"  he  is  declared 
to  have  been.  The  love  of  poetry,  nurtured  at  his 
mother's  bedside,  was  an  abiding  resource 
throughout  his  life,  the  great  Milton  of  his 
earliest  devotion  retaining  the  allegiance  of  his 
mature  years.  As  a  man  he  was  a  genuine  lover 
of  nature,  and  in  the  days  of  his  youth  at  Perry 
Centre  could  not  have  been  insensible  to  the 
charm  of  the  scenes  which  surrounded  him.  For 
this  was  no  rocky  wilderness,  like  the  home  of 
the  first  Pilgrims,  but  a  pleasant  region  of 
meadows,  orchards,  and  woods.  From  Joseph's 
chamber  in  the  old  home  at  "the  Centre" 
he  could  look  eastward  across  the  gentle 
slope  of  the  beautiful  Genessee  valley  stretching 
away  for  twenty-five  miles  to  the  blue  hills  on  the 
opposite  side.  That  lovely,  broad,  and  inspiring 
view  would  be  the  most  familiar  daily  sight  to  any 
one  living  in  the  vicinity  of  Perry  Centre,  or 
along  the  road  northward  to  Leroy. 

16 


CHAPTER  II 


SCHOOL    DAYS— TEACHING    AT    WELLS- 

N.  Y.— PIONE 

IN  ILLINOIS 


VILLE,  N.  Y.— PIONEERING 


1 


CHAPTER  II 

SCHOOL     DAYS— TEACHING     AT     WELLS- 
VILLE,    N.    Y.— PIONEERING    IN    ILLINOIS 

THE  education  of  the  children  in  such  a  com- 
munity as  Perry  Centre,  even  from  the 
earliest  pioneering  days,  would  be  most 
faithfully  provided  for.  Dr.  Jabez  Ward  was 
himself  a  school  oflBcer  of  the  district,  and  at  all 
times  was  zealous  in  the  interests  of  education 
for  the  community.  Of  Joseph's  reading  at  home, 
and  of  the  intellectual  influence  of  his  mother, 
some  account  has  already  been  given.  His  reg- 
ular training  in  the  home  schools  was  doubtless 
of  sound  quality.  Yet  his  attendance  at  school 
was  somewhat  irregular,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  rather  delicate  as  a  child,  and  it  was 
often  thought  best  to  keep  him  out  of  doors 
instead  of  in  the  school  room.  Apart  from  the 
precocity  of  his  home  reading,  and  the  remark- 
able strength  of  his  memory,  there  was  nothing 
unusual  about  the  growth  of  his  mind,  and  he 
himself  regarded  it  as  rather  slow. 

It  was  at  the  district  school,  a  mile  or  so  from 
his  home,  that  Joseph  had  most  of  his  training  up 
to  the  time  he  was  fifteen  years  old.  But  there 
was  also  at  Perry  Centre  an  "institute,"  or  acad- 

19 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

emy,  privately  conducted,  and  patronized  by  the 
principal  families  of  the  community,  where  more 
advanced  training  was  afforded,  equivalent  to  the 
beginning  of  a  high  school  course  at  the  present 
time.  Such  academies  were  common  in  those 
days,  especially  in  communities  of  New  England 
people:  there  was  one  also  at  the  neighboring  vil- 
lage of  Leroy,  which  Joseph  attended  part  of  one 
year,  and  a  school  also  of  advanced  character  at 
Perry  Village  a  few  miles  from  "The  Centre.*' 
The  boy  enjoyed  the  best  of  these  advantages  of 
schooling,  even  after  the  old  home  was  broken  up 
by  the  death  of  his  mother.  His  uncle,  Phicol  M. 
Ward — "Uncle  Munro" — who  lived  near  by,  took 
Joseph  into  his  family,  administered  for  him  and 
the  other  children  the  slender  estate  of  the 
mother,  and  out  of  his  own  means  aided  Joseph 
for  a  number  of  years  as  he  pursued  hi§  educa- 
tion. The  young  man  worked  for  his  uncle  and  for 
neighboring  farmers  during  vacations  and  at  odd 
times,  earning  what  he  could  himself  for  carrying 
on  his  schooling.  He  received  help  also  from 
time  to  time  from  his  brother,  Butler,  who  had 
soon  established  himself  in  business  and  was 
master  of  some  income.  This  generosity  on  the 
part  of  the  family  was  a  mark  of  their  recogni- 
tion of  promise  in  the  youth,  and  the  outcome 
proved  that  they  invested  wisely. 

The  clearest  impression  of  Joseph  Ward  in  these 
school  days  is  gained  from  a  letter  from  Mr.  E.  D. 
C.  McKay,  one  of  the  schoolmasters  at  Perry  Cen- 
tre, written  long  afterward  to  Mrs.  Ward.  Mc- 
Kay was  the  teacher  who  gave  the  young  man  his 

20 


SCHOOL  DAYS 

first  impulse  toward  a  college  education,  and 
Joseph  Ward  always  spoke  of  him  with  high 
appreciation.     The  letter  is  as  follows: 

"Thirty  years  ago,  when  I,  a  boy  of  seventeen, 
was  teaching  the  district  school  in  the  old  'White 
School  House'  a  mile  east  of  Perry  Centre,  New 
York,  Joseph  Ward  was  a  pupil  there,  walking  a 
mile  and  a  half  daily  to  school.  The  next  winter 
he  attended  a  school  that  I  taught  at  Perry  Cen- 
tre.* Considered  altogether,  his  intellectual 
make-up,  his  tone  and  elevation  of  character  and 
breadth  and  soundness  of  judgment,  he  was  the 
strongest  and  most  promising  young  man  I  ever 
met.  In  the  long  stretch  of  years  since  then, 
among  all  the  young  men — some  thousands — I 
have  observed  in  college  and  elsewhere,  reckoning 
him  on  the  broadest  and  clearest  lines  that  point 
to  high  usefulness  and  value  as  a  man,  I  cer- 
tainly have  known  very  few  who  would  rank  with 
him.  I  suppose  his  career  attests  the  correctness 
of  my  early  and  permanent  estimate  of  him.  I 
labored  hard  and  often  with  him  to  overcome  his 
doubts  as  to  taking  a  college  course,  and  he 
touched  me  deeply  some  years  since  when  he  told 
me  that  to  'Uncle  Sam'  of  Phillips  Academy,  and 
to  me  he  was  more  indebted  for  what  he  was  than 
to  all  others  put  together.  I  can  see  that  I  in- 
fluenced him  considerably  in  many  ways,  and  in 
the  matter  of  a  college  course,  but  what  he  was 
and  what  he  became  was  in  him.  I  always  felt 
sure  that  he  must  have  had  a  rare  father  and 
mother.     I  have  written  of  him  as  I  knew  him  in 

♦The  Institute  above  referred  to. 

21 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

his  youth  and  young  manhood.  No  one  who  ever 
saw  him  for  a  moment  could  well  fail  to  be 
impressed  as  I  was." 

During  these  terms  at  Perry  Centre  Institute, 
at  Leroy,  and  at  Perry  Village  school,  he  secured 
a  groundwork  in  History,  Latin,  and  Mathemat- 
ics, together  with  some  start  in  German.  Latin 
was  always  a  favorite  study  with  him,  and  he 
developed  eventually  into  something  of  a  Latin 
scholar.  Mathematics  were  less  to  his  liking, 
and  the  problems  were  tough  discipline  for  his 
will.  In  debating  society  at  the  Perry  school  he 
once  argued  for  the  affirmative  of  the  question, 
"Resolved:  that  a  classical  education  is  more 
beneficial  than  a  mathematical."  From  refer- 
ences in  his  letters  and  diaries  to  great  toil  and 
distress  over  his  mathematics  it  may  be  inferred 
that  he  upheld  his  case  in  this  debate  with  much 
fervor.  Now  and  then  from  his  slender  purse  he 
purchased  books  for  general  reading,  among  them 
about  this  time  a  copy  of  the  works  of  Shake- 
speare, which  he  read  with  great  delight.  Shake- 
speare, and  in  fact  English  literature  in  general, 
had  scarcely  any  place  in  the  secondary  school 
curriculum  of  those  days.  Perhaps  the  study  of 
the  works  of  Shakespeare,  as  being  stage  plays, 
Avould  even  have  been  frowned  upon  in  a  strict 
Puritan  community  like  Perry  Centre.  At  all 
events,  it  seems  that  the  same  liberal-minded 
early  school  master  of  the  place,  of  whom  men- 
tion has  already  been  made,*  felt  moved  to  write 
a  "treatise  on  rhetorical  instruction,  and  in  it 

*Page  8. 

22 


SCHOOL  DAYS 

take  occasion  to  vindicate  such  authors  as 
Shakespeare  and  other  dramatic  writers."  This 
excellent  project  was  not  carried  out,  however, 
for  he  presently  made  the  discovery  that  Dr. 
Johnson  and  Coleridge  had  already  written  in  de- 
fense of  Shakespeare  and  the  dramatists,  and 
in  a  more  able  manner  than  he  could  hope  to  do 
it,  and  therefore  concluded  that  "the  best  way 
henceforth  would  be  to  refer  those  who  are  dis- 
posed to  cavil  on  the  subject  of  the  drama  to 
those  and  other  great  and  good  men  who  have 
written  in  its  favor." 

So  the  boy  Joseph  read  the  plays  of  Shake- 
speare, whether  encountering  "cavil"  it  is  not 
recorded,  but  the  fact  is  a  good  sign.  He  had 
the  strength  of  the  Puritan  nature  without  its 
severity.  His  soul  was  open  to  the  "humanities" 
always;  and  the  deep  springs  of  human  nature, 
and  beauty,  and  imagination,  and  humor,  con- 
tinued fresh  and  unspoiled  in  him  throughout 
manhood's  work. 

Yet,  though  the  growth  of  his  mind  was  toward 
broad  and  kindly  ways  of  thinking,  let  it  not  be 
supposed  that  specific  weeds  of  heresy  had  any 
chance  to  spring  up  in  him,  trained  as  he  was 
from  infancy  on  solid  New  England  doctrine.  He 
used  to  have  lively  discussions  in  Bible  class  with 
a  certain  teacher  who,  it  seems,  was  prone  to 
follow  unsound  ways  of  thinking.  He  writes  it 
down  in  his  diary  on  one  occasion  that  "Mr.  S. 
does  not  believe  in  total  depravity,  yet  will  not 
be  convinced  by  any  amount  of  argument."  In 
fact,  so  hopelessly  perverted  was  the  mind  of  this 

23 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

teacher  on  some  of  these  fundamental  points  that 
Joseph  was  disposed  at  one  time  to  quit  the  class, 
"having  been  favored  long  enough  with  the 
instructions  of  Mr.  S." 

During  his  attendance  at  the  academy  at  Leroy, 
when  he  was  in  his  eighteenth  year,  he  became 
converted  in  a  series  of  revival  meetings  held  in 
the  Presbyterian  church  of  that  place.  Although 
he  had  been  reared  in  a  Christian  home,  and  the 
whole  bent  of  his  training  had  been  toward  re- 
ligious belief,  nevertheless  this  event  marked  an 
epoch  in  his  life.  Henceforth  he  became  a  "dedi- 
cated spirit."  Joseph  Ward  always  believed  in 
conversion:  first  in  his  own;  then  in  the  conver- 
sion of  others.  In  his  long  years  of  preaching  he 
aimed  at  converting  people,  and  did  so.  Rel- 
atives at  Leroy  were  deeply  impressed  with  what 
he  said  one  time  at  a  prayer  meeting  there,  on 
the  occasion  of  a  visit  during  his  later  years, 
referring  most  affectingly  to  his  conversion  in 
that  church  so  many  years  before.  That  solemn 
hour  he  held  sacred  in  his  memory,  as  he  did  also 
the  hour  when  he  joined  the  little  church  at  Perry 
Centre  not  long  after,  on  the  Sunday  before  he 
was  eighteen. 

He  had  received  from  McKay  a  strong  impulse 
toward  a  college  education,  and  in  all  likelihood 
was  thinking  now  of  the  ministry  as  a  life  work; 
but  circumstances  were  not  favorable  at  this 
time,  and  decision  on  that  question  was  deferred. 
His  sister  Sarah  was  now  married  to  the  Rev. 
Stewart  Sheldon,  and  they  had  gone  to  Wells- 
ville,  N.  Y.,  where  Mr.  Sheldon  had  his  first  pas- 

24 


SCHOOL  DAYS 

torate.  Thither  Joseph  followed  them,  and 
started  a  private  school  at  that  village.  He  re- 
cords in  his  diary  how  he  had  seventy-five  hand- 
bills printed  announcing  his  school,  and  distrib- 
uted them  himself  to  the  people  of  the  town.  As 
the  result  of  his  advertising  he  secured  four 
pupils  for  the  opening  day,  which  number  was 
increased  to  eighteen  in  the  course  of  the  year. 
After  one  month's  experience  as  a  pedagogue  he 
comes  to  the  conclusion  that  "teaching  is  hard 
work.  It  is  tiresome  to  repeat  one  thing  for  the 
hundredth  time,  and  then  not  be  understood.  I 
wish  scholars  would  think  more  seriously."  He 
was  instinctively  reluctant  to  resort  to  the  rod, 
yet  it  appears  that  he  was  obliged  to  do  so  more 
than  once,  particularly  in  the  case  of  one  "uneasy 
boy." 

This  was  Joseph  Ward's  first  experience  as  an 
educator.  There  was  probably  not  much  encour- 
agement and  still  less  profit  in  this  maiden 
effort,  and  early  in  the  spring,  having  brought 
his  school  to  a  close,  he  embarked  upon  a  venture 
of  quite  different  sort. 

He  and  his  brother  Butler  the  year  before  had 
taken  a  half  section  of  land,  out  West,  near 
Monee,  Illinois,  and  Joseph  now  betook  himself 
thither  to  try  his  hand  at  farming.  He  spent 
there  a  hard,  tedious,  and  discouraging  year.  He 
built  him  a  little  house  and  lived  there  alone. 
With  an  ox-team  he  broke  up  the  prairie  sod, 
planted  corn  and  beans  and  tended  them  through 
the  hot  summer,  toiled  for  many  weeks  building  a 
fence  and  digging  a  well,  in  the  meanwhile  caring 

25 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

for  a  few  head  of  cattle — all  this  manifestly  with 
no  spark  of  enthusiasm  and  with  heavy  groanings 
of  spirit.  He  was  soon  convinced  that  he  was 
not  cut  out  for  a  farmer.  It  appears  that  he  did 
not  even  have  physical  strength  for  it,  and  was 
sick  often  from  strain  of  work.  Large-framed 
though  he  was,  Ward  was  not  alw^ays  of  quite 
robust  physique.  The  lonely  evenings  he  spent 
in  reading  and  study.  Many  an  hour  of  the  long 
Sundaj^s  he  would  spend  with  a  book  in  hand, 
watching  the  cattle  to  keep  them  out  of  the  corn; 
but  his  mind  was  too  much  on  the  book,  and  the 
cattle  "bothered  him."  He  seems  to  have  had  in 
view  the  continuation  of  his  education,  although 
the  way  was  not  then  clear,  and  he  could  not  yet 
decide  on  his  particular  line  of  future  work.  He 
studied  surveying,  and  through  the  winter  had 
more  or  less  employment  in  that  line.  He  read 
Blackstone,  and  seems  to  have  thought  some  of 
taking  up  the  law.  Uncertainty  preyed  upon  his 
mind  as  the  year  wore  on. 

Still  there  were  happier  circumstances  to 
relieve  the  hardship  and  discouragement  of  that 
long  year.  He  enjoyed  visiting  at  the  home  of 
Butler,  who  was  now  living  at  Rockford,  Illinois. 
The  hours  he  spent  in  their  home — the  reading 
aloud,  and  the  talk,  and  the  games  of  chess — 
were  always  bright  memories  in  Butler's  family. 
Then  in  the  little  pioneer  settlement  at  Monee 
he  soon  became  interested  in  his  neighbors  and  in 
what  was  going  on.  Town  meeting  and  election, 
debating  club,  temperance  society,  Sunday  School, 
of  which  he  was  chosen  superintendent — in  all 

26 


SCHOOL  DAYS 

these  affairs  he  had  a  hand,  playing  the  part  in 
small  of  building  up  a  new  country  which  he  was 
destined  to  play  on  a  larger  scale  in  Dakota  later 
on. 

The  next  spring  he  succeeded  in  renting  the 
farm,  to  his  great  relief,  and  by  July  he  was  able 
to  wind  up  his  affairs  at  Monee,  say  farewell  to  his 
friends  there,  and  start  back  for  his  old  home  in 
New  York.  On  through  the  summer  he  did  much 
reading  and  visited  with  old  friends,  but  not  till 
toward  fall  did  he  get  the  question  settled  of 
what  he  was  going  to  do.  While  he  was  at 
Wells ville  visiting  Sister  Sarah  and  her  family, 
his  old  teacher,  McKay,  came  there  to  see  him, 
which  ma}'  have  aided  him  in  arriving  at  a  deci- 
sion. At  all  events  by  the  first  of  September  the 
die  is  cast,  and  he  sets  out  for  the  East  to  become 
a  student  at  Phillips  Academy  in  Andover,  Massa- 
chusetts. 


27 


CHAPTER  III 
PHILLIPS  ACADEMY,  ANDOVER 


CHAPTER  III 
PHILLIPS  ACADEMY,  ANDOVER 

HAVING  decided  upon  the  ministry  as  his 
life  work,  Joseph  Ward  now  entered  upon  a 
period  of  study,  eleven  years  in  all,  in  acad- 
emy, college,  and  seminary,  to  prepare  himself 
for  that  calling.  Destined  to  become  a  standard- 
bearer  of  New  England  civilization  at  the  West, 
he  received  this  course  of  education  in  New  Eng- 
land schools.  For  his  preparatory  training  noth- 
ing could  have  been  more  favorable  than  his 
choice  of  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  Massachu- 
setts. It  was  the  oldest,  largest,  and  most  dis- 
tinguished of  the  preparatory  schools  of  New 
England,  an  institution  of  splendid  traditions, 
and  an  honored  alumni  roll  of  poets,  patriots, 
teachers,  preachers,  and  missionaries  since  its 
foundation.  The  period  of  Joseph  Ward's  course, 
from  1857  to  1861,  was  an  inspiring  time  in  the 
history  of  the  school.  The  classics  were  still  in 
full  bloom  there,  the  main  constituent  in  the 
course  of  study,  and  their  idealizing  influence  was 
manifest  in  the  developing  characters  of  the  stu- 
dents of  that  day.  One  receives  the  impression,  in 
reading  accounts  of  the  Academy  at  that  time,  of 
a  company  of  young  idealists,  looking  forth  from 

31 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

an  atmosphere  all  radiant  with  faith  and  courage 
upon  a  world  they  meant  to  conquer.  One  sees, 
for  example,  with  what  spirit  of  idealism  they 
studied  history,  nourishing  the  mind  with  lofty 
conceptions  of  political  liberty  and  heroic  leader- 
ship. It  is  no  wonder  that,  as  the  great  struggle 
of  the  Civil  War  drew  on,  the  old  Massachu- 
setts academy  became  a  hotbed  of  patriotic 
enthusiasm.  The  inspiring  eloquence  of  Wen- 
dell Phillips  and  Edward  Everett  was  heard  by 
the  Andover  boys  in  the  days  when  Ward  was 
there,  and  struck  the  answering  chord  in  their 
hearts.  Those  times,  too,  were  the  period  of  our 
greatest  American  literature,  and  Boston  near 
by  was  the  centre  of  the  literary  movement. 
Young  men  of  the  Academy  caught  the  literary 
spirit,  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  New  England 
orators,  and  not  a  few  were  kindled  with  ambi- 
tion for  the  career  of  letters. 

Moreover,  Ward's  years  at  Phillips  fell  happily 
in  those  palmy  days  of  the  reign  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Harvey  Taylor  as  principal,  "the  Arnold  of  Amer- 
ica," as  he  has  been  called,  a  great  classical 
scholar,  and  probably  the  most  famous  school- 
master of  his  time.  During  his  long  administra- 
tion as  principal  of  the  Academy  he  was  beloved 
and  feared  by  all  the  boys  at  Phillips,  and  always 
was  known  among  them  by  the  name  of  "Uncle 
Sam."  To  him  as  a  teacher  Joseph  Ward 
believed  that  he  owed  more  than  to  any  other 
man,  unless  it  was  the  McKay  of  the  school  at 
Perry  Centre. 

So  extraordinary  was  the  personality  and 
32 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY 

influence  of  this  great  teaclier  that  we  may  dwell 
for  a  moment  upon  some  of  the  numerous  remi- 
niscences that  have  been  published  regarding  him. 
Of  his  dominating  influence  over  the  Academy 
one  writer  says:  "He  (Uncle  Sam)  appeared  in  a 
measure  indifferent  to  the  methods  of  teaching 
or  the  capability  of  teachers  in  the  school  for  the 
first  years  of  a  boy's  life.  Under-teachers  were 
repeatedly  changed  during  his  administration, 
and  he  relied  with  confidence  upon  the  power 
which  he  possessed  to  take  boys  in  the  final  year 
of  their  course  and  make  genuine  scholars  of 
them.''  "I  can  remember,''  writes  nn other,  "how 
we  sat  for  an  hour  and  three-quarters  many  a 
time,  and  dwelt  with  real  interest  and  entertain- 
ment during  all  that  time  over  five  lines  of  the 
Aeneid  or  over  two  lines  of  the  Iliad  .     .     He 

taught  Latin  and  Greek  it  seemed  to  me  as  no  one 
had  ever  taught  it  before,  or  ever  would  again. 
How  intent  and  earnest  was  he  as  he  took  up  the 
first  line  of  Homer  with  all  the  freshness  and 
curiosity  of  a  seeker  after  new  light,  as  if  he  had 
not  gone  wearisomely  over  and  over  it  again,  now 
for  the  thousandth  time!  How  lovingly  he  took  it 
up,  syllable  by  syllable  and  word  by  word,  tend- 
ing each  word  as  carefull}^  as  a  sweet  babe,  turn- 
ing it  one  side  and  another  with  sweet  affection, 
warning  us  of  the  curious  beauty  of  its  interpre- 
tation, the  fine  philosophy  of  its  derivation,  the 
wise  peculiarity  of  its  composition,  its  singular 
increment,  its  unique  terminal  ending,  its  quaint 
and  apt  office  in  its  place,  and  the  happy  burden 
of  its  meaning!     ....     The  room  in  which 

33 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

he  held  his  class,  Number  Nine,  was  a  daily  bat- 
tleground. There  were  no  superfluous  words  in 
his  questions.  Each  was  delivered  as  if  stripped 
for  the  fight.  There  was  no  pause  for  guessing 
answer  and  no  prompting  by  insinuating  ques- 
tion. .  .  The  boys  came  out,  those  who 
were  in  earueht — and  it  was  rare  that  all  were 
not  caught  in  the  contagion  of  his  earnestness — 
flushed  and  eager,  quickened  by  the  contest,  and 
excited  to  new  effort.'' 

In  his  morning  prayer  at  chapel  he  often  said: 
"O  Lord,  give  to  the  students  of  this  Academy 
retentive  memories." 

"For  more  than  a  generation  he  was  autocrat 
of  Phillips  and  emperor  of  Andover.  His  reign 
was  in  no  way  a  limited  monarchy,  it  was  abso- 
lute  Dr.  Taylor  always  wore  black 

broadcloth  clothes,  the  coat  cut  with  swallow- 
tails like  the  modern  evening  coat,  a  turn-down 
Byron  collar  and  a  neck  handkerchief  of  black 
silk  or  satin.  ...  In  cold  weather  he  usually 
wore  on  the  street  a  dark  blue  cloak  of  ample 
dimensions  with  a  collar  of  black  velvet,  and  a  tall 
silk  hat  then  commonly  called  a  stove-pipe.  To 
see  and  meet  Dr.  Taylor  and  Professor  Park,  a 
tall  and  most  distinguished  looking  man,  the  rev- 
erend and  venerated  head  of  the  theological  sem- 
inary, walking  together  on  the  streets  of  Andover 
was  something  to  be  remembered — Andover's  two 
most  distinguished  citizens.  As  they  passed 
every  hat  was  doffed,  and  they  always  graciously 
returned  this  recognition  and  mark  of  respect  by 
lifting  their  own  hats  in  response." 

34 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY 

It  was  at  Phillips  Academy  under  "Uncle  Sam,-' 
rather  than  later  in  his  colleire  course,  that 
Ward's  own  character  as  a  student  was  formed, 
and  his  ideal  of  high  quality  in  scholarship  was 
established.  By  nature  he  was  diligent  in  his 
studies;  to  him  the  nearest  and  clearest  duty  was 
to  acquire  knowledge.  Yet  he  was  never  bril- 
liant as  a  scholar,  and  the  medium  grades  which 
he  received,  recorded  in  self-admonishment  in  his 
diary  from  week  to  week,  were  the  source  of  no 
little  discouragement.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  at  that 
time  and  always  he  had  the  faculty  of  assimilat- 
ing what  he  got  from  books  into  the  genuine  and 
permanent  wisdom  of  the  mind.  Greek  was  a 
struggle  for  him,  yet  he  loved  it  with  increasing 
devotion,  and  to  have  made  a  "rush"  in  a  Greek 
recitation  under  "Uncle  Sam,"  as  he  now  and  then 
succeeded  in  doing,  was  a  source  of  keenest  pleas- 
ure. Writing  in  after  years  of  his  memory  of 
the  class  in  Greek  at  Phillips  under  Dr.  Taylor, 
he  said:  "It  was  one  of  the  pleasures  of  our  pre- 
paratory course  to  hear  our  principal,  the  second 
if  not  the  first  Greek  scholar  in  America,  repeat 
occasional  passages  from  Homer's  Iliad.  We 
could  hear  the  multitudinous  roar  of  the  many- 
sounding  sea,  the  dreadful  clanging  of  Apollo's 
silver  bow — though  it  seems  little  less  than  sac- 
rilege to  attempt  in  stiff  English  a  rendering  of 
Homer's  nokv<f>X6uTPoio  daXxKra-rjs- "  In  Latin,  his 
favorite  study  in  the  former  home  schools.  Ward 
did  become  the  first  scholar  in  his  class  at  Phil- 
lips, and  was  elected  by  the  students  and  princi- 
pal to  one  of  the  six  high  "honors"  at  the  anni- 

35 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

versary  "Exhibition,"  where  he  delivered  the 
Latin  Oration. 

Like  many  another  boy  at  Andover  Joseph 
Ward  had  to  earn  part  of  his  school  expenses. 
The  usual  thing  was  sawing  wood.  The  boys  were 
wont  to  work  in  pairs,  wielding  the  swift  cross- 
cut, and  doubtless  many  a  lifelong  friendship  was 
there  sealed,  at  some  professor's  woodpile,  by 
drops  of  sweat  that  mingled  together  in  the  saw- 
dust. One  of  the  boys  whom  Ward  became 
acquainted  with  in  this  partnership  of  toil,  form- 
ing a  lasting  friendship,  was  James  Brand,  after- 
ward the  distinguished  minister  of  the  First  Con- 
gregational church  at  Oberlin.  But  Ward  found 
other  means  of  eking  out  expenses,  probably 
more  lucrative  than  the  buck  and  saw.  "We  w^ere 
living,"  writes  Professor  Churchill,  "in  the  days 
of  boarding  clubs  managed  by  the  students  them- 
selves as  one  of  the  means  of  self-help.  The  larg- 
est of  these  clubs  unanimously  elected  Ward  as 
steward;  and  right  w^ell  he  carried  the  club 
through  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  providing  for 
five-and-twenty  hungry,  whimsical  young  fellows, 
ever  ready  to  find  fault  with  what  did  not  exactly 
suit  their  fastidious  tastes;  but  his  imperturbable 
good  nature,  his  tact,  patience,  economy,  and 
knowledge  of  schoolboy  gastronomies,  won  from 
us  our  cordial  praise,  and  secured  his  frequent 
re-election  to  the  stewardship."* 

Ward  soon  made  his  place  as  one  of  the  strong 
men  in  the  famous  Philomathean  Literary  Society 

*This  and  following  passages  are  from  the  Memorial 
Number  of  "The  Yankton  Student.  " 

36 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY 

of  the  Academy,  and  was  chosen  to  some  of  its 
most  responsible  offices.  He  frequently  took  the 
floor  in  debate.  His  style  of  speaking  was  clear, 
sensible,  and  weighty,  and  he  often  writes  in  his 
diary  of  having  "gained  his  case."  Professor 
Churchill  tells  how  school  politics  centered  in  and 
proceeded  from  the  election  of  officers  of  "Philo." 
"Never  have  I  witnesssed,"  he  says,  "intenser  po- 
litical rivalry,  never  have  I  seen  the  tactics,  the 
enthusiasm,  the  conflicts  that  pertain  to  heated 
party  politics  more  actively  displayed  than  in  the 
'Philo'  elections  of  '60  and  '61.  Ward  was  no  half- 
hearted neutral;  he  was  ever  found  squarely 
planted  upon  the  side  that  seemed  to  him  to  rep- 
resent the  best  measures  through  the  best  meth- 
ods, and  in  the  best  men.  This  initiative  political 
training-ground  helped  to  equip  many  a  man  who 
afterward  became  eminent  in  the  politics  and  the 
councils  of  State  and  Nation." 

The  highest  honor  in  the  gift  of  the  Society  was 
the  editorship  of  the  "Philomathean  Mirror."  To 
this  Ward  was  in  due  time  elected.  It  was  a 
remarkable  periodical.  Its  wisdom  may  have 
been  somewhat  "top  heavy,"  yet  if  one  would 
catch  the  splendid  spirit  of  the  Phillips  Academy 
of  that  day,  one  has  but  to  turn  the  leaves  of  an 
old  volume  of  the  "Philomathean  Mirror."  Its 
pages  fairly  glow  with  the  enthusiasm  of  youth, 
with  great  ideals  of  life's  work,  and  ,with  a 
patriotism  that  thrills  like  a  prophecy. 

Ward  identified  himself  from  the  beginning 
with  the  religious  interests  of  the  school,  in  which 
he  soon  bore  a  leading  part.     Professor  Churchill 

37 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

had  his  first  impression  of  Ward  at  a  class  prayer 
meeting,  which  he  describes  as  follows:  "It  was 
not  strange  that,  when  he  took  his  place  as  leader 
of  the  first  class  prayer  meeting  of  the  United 
Divisions  of  the  Middle  Class  at  the  opening  of 
the  new  academic  year,  every  classmate  turned 
toward  him  with  respectful  attention.  The  eye 
was  first  attracted  by  his  unusual  height,  by  the 
maturity  of  his  appearance,  the  modesty  and  man- 
liness of  his  bearing,  and  the  kindliness  of  his 
expression;  the  ear  was  charmed  by  his  gentle 
tones  as  he  reverently  read  the  Scripture,  and  led 
us  in  prayer  with  the  intimate  cadence  of  one 
accustomed  to  communion  with  his  Father;  when 
he  spoke  to  us  out  of  his  personal  experience,  and 
his  knowledge  of  the  religious  needs  of  school  life, 
there  was  a  blending  of  diflSdence  and  self-posses- 
sion that  won  the  listener's  sympathy  and  con- 
fidence. He  spoke  briefly,  to  the  point,  in  an 
unpretentious  way,  but  yet  with  such  a  quiet 
strength  and  authority  that  I  felt  he  was  not 
only  the  leader  of  that  prayer  meeting,  but  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  school.  And  so  indeed  he 
was." 

Ward  was  an  active  worker  in  the  Society  of 
Inquiry,  a  student  organization  for  the  study  of 
missionary  subjects  and  the  promotion  of  reli- 
gious life  among  the  students  and  in  due  time 
was  chosen  as  its  president.  In  neighborhood 
mission  work  carried  on  by  the  students  of  the 
Academy  he  bore  a  large  share,  chiefly  in  connec- 
tion with  a  mission  Sunday  School  in  Abbott  vil- 
lage near  by,  established  for  factory  children, 

38 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY 

and  regularly  in  charge  of  Phillips  students.  He 
began  as  teacher  and  afterward  became  superin- 
tendent of  the  school.  He  tells  in  his  diary  of  his 
custom  of  holding  a  five-minute  meeting  for 
prayer  with  his  teachers  just  before  beginning  the 
session  of  the  school,  and  of  its  visible  effect  upon 
the  work  of  the  hour — even  upon  the  conduct  of  a 
class  of  unruly  boys.  His  supreme  object  in  reli- 
gious work,  then  and  always,  was  simply  and 
directh^  to  win  souls  to  the  religion  of  Christ.  In 
a  quiet,  natural  way  he  became  a  marked  force 
in  personal  evangelism  among  his  fellow  students, 
and  was  one  of  a  small  group  of  men,  an  inner 
circle  of  religious  spirits,  who  met  and  prayed 
together,  and  planned  and  labored  for  the  deep- 
ening of  the  religious  life  of  the  Academy.  In 
this  he  was  respected  by  all  who  knew  him. 
There  was  not  a  particle  of  cant  in  his  make-up. 
He  went  about  his  work  with  that  same  sincerity 
and  winning  friendliness  that  characterized  all 
his  intercourse  with  men  in  later  life.  "The  sym- 
pathy of  his  society,"  says  Professor  Churchill, 
"was  genial,  wise,  and  helpful.  He  was  natur- 
ally the  recipient  of  man}'  confidences.  The  err- 
ing and  the  sinful  were  sure  of  his  tenderness  and 
firmness;  the  discouraged  struggler  with  himself 
or  his  task  found  a  way  out  with  Ward  for  a 
guide;  and  more  than  one  broken-hearted  young 
lover  found  consolation  and  direction  in  this  wise- 
hearted  friend.  Many  a  sentimental  Pendennis 
looked  to  him  as  his  Warrington;  many  a  head- 
strong Tom  Brown  made  him  his  Hardy.  I  say 
of  Ward,  as  Carlyle  said  of  the  dear  friend  of  his 

39 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

youth,  Edward  Irving — "He  was  the  brotherliest 
man  I  ever  know." 

With  all  his  high  seriousness  of  purpose,  Ward 
was  one  of  the  heartiest  and  most  active  of  good 
fellows  in  all  the  fun  and  athletic  sports  of  the 
school.  He  was  fond  of  a  social  evening  with 
two  or  three  of  his  friends,  and  at  such  times  of 
relaxation  he  was  full  of  gayety  and  good  stories 
He  was  vigorous  and  active  in  all  the  forms  of 
athletics  and  manly  exercises  in  the  school.  Foot- 
ball was  his  favorite  game.  He  says  in  his  diary, 
with  an  air  of  confession,  that  he  sometimes 
became  "greatly  excited,"  yet  he  always  bore  the 
reputation  of  "playing  fair,"  and  w^as  the  one 
most  often  chosen  as  umpire  of  disputed  points. 
He  represented  his  class  as  one  of  the  regular 
committee  whose  business  it  was  to  keep  order 
on  the  athletic  grounds.  Baseball,  hare-and- 
hounds  (adopted  from  one  of  Ward's  favorite 
books,  "Tom  Brown  at  Rugby"),  and  long-distance 
country  runs  were  sports  that  he  delighted  in. 
He  was  member  of  a  volunteer  fire  company  that 
at  one  time  in  Ward's  day  was  called  to  active 
service  at  a  great  factory  fire  at  Lawrence.  The 
captain  of  that  company  was  no  less  a  personage 
than  "Uncle  Sam"  himself,  and  many  a  boy 
retains  in  his  memory  the  picture  of  that  great 
teacher  and  stern  master  running  with  the  ma- 
chine in  the  ardor  of  his  enthusiasm.  Ward  was 
also  member  of  that  military  company  known  as 
the  "Phillips  Guards,"  which  just  before  the  out- 
break of  the  Civil  War  afforded  expression  for  the 
martial  spirit  of  the  Academy  boys,    at  a   time 

40 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY 

when  Dr.  Taylor  and  the  other  teachers  had  all 
they  could  do  to  restrain  their  pupils  from  leav- 
ing school  and  enlisting.  Ward  was  chosen  lieu- 
tenant-commander of  the  division  made  up  of 
the  tallest  and  largest  men  in  school. 

Out  door  sports  and  pleasures  of  less  strenuous 
nature  he  also  took  part  in  with  great  delight.  In 
wintertime  there  was  famous  coasting  down  the 
long  hill  of  Andover,  and  skating  parties  at 
Pomp's  Pond,  where  sometimes  a  hundred  would 
be  on  the  ice  at  once — including  sober  "theologs" 
of  the  Seminary,  perennial  butt  of  Academy  jest- 
ing, and  demure  maidens  from  the  Abbott  School 
— the  "nuns"  of  school  parlance,  objects  of  cau- 
tious gallantry  and  restrained  admiration.  In  sum- 
mer there  was  fine  swimming  at  Haggett's  Pond, 
and  in  the  spring  and  autumn  long,  delightful 
walks  over  the  hills  or  down  the  river  perhaps  as 
far  as  Haverhill.  To  go  walking  with  a  friend  or 
two — that  was  always  great  happiness  to  him. 
"It  was  a  rare  delight,"  says  Churchill,  "to  share 
his  enthusiasm  for  nature."  Haggett's  Pond,  and 
"glorious"  Sunset  Rock,  and  Prospect  Hill  were 
favorite  objective  points — the  latter  with  its  mag- 
nificent view  of  Mount  Monadnock,  and  Salem, 
and  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  and  ships  visible  on 
the  distant  sea. 

There  was  one  vacation  at  the  close  of  his  jun- 
ior year  at  Phillips,  spent  with  his  friend,  John 
Allen,  and  a  jolly  group  of  young  people  at  Mar- 
ion, on  Buzzard's  Bay,  that  was  a  particularly 
bright  memory.  Upon  his  return  he  contributed 
to    the    "Philomathean    Mirror"    his    "Reminis- 

41 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

cences"  of  the  sports  and  adventures  of  that  oc- 
casion, in  the  form  of  a  burlesque  in  Hiawathian 
verse,  which  was  highly  entertaining  to  the  per- 
sons concerned,  as  well  as  to  the  student  public 
at  Phillips. 

Ward  always  retained  a  remarkable  fund  of 
boyish  spirits  and  a  zest  for  a  merry  time.  In 
his  later  years,  which  were  so  weighted  down 
with  toil  and  trouble,  he  had  his  recourse  now 
and  then  to  lighter  hours  in  company  with  the 
young  and  the  young  hearted,  when  it  seemed 
as  if  care  took  wings  and  left  him  free.  Mem- 
bers of  his  own  family  and  friends  who  knew  him 
best  like  to  recall  this  trait  and  are  aware  that 
it  was  one  of  the  sources  of  his  strength. 


42 


CHAPTER  IV 

BROWN    UNIVERSITY    AND    ANDOVEK 
THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


CHAPTER  IV 

BROWN  UNIVERSITY  AND  ANDOVER 
THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

WARD  graduated  from  Phillips  Academy  in 
1861,  and  in  the  following  fall  matricu- 
lated at  Brown  University,  Providence, 
Rhode  Island.  In  his  choice  of  Brown  for  his 
college  course  he  was  influenced  in  part  by  the 
fact  that  Sister  Sarah  and  her  husband,  the  Rev. 
Stewart  Sheldon,  were  now  living  at  Central 
Falls,  a  manufacturing  town  a  few  miles  out 
from  Providence,  and  they  invited  him  to  live 
with  them  while  attending  the  University.  But 
furthermore  Brown  was  a  favorite  institution  for 
Phillips  Academy  graduates,  and  Ward  had  the 
advantage  there  of  companionship  with  a  number 
of  his  Academy  classmates  and  friends. 

The  War  had  begun.  Many  a  beginning  class 
in  the  colleges  of  New  England  might  soon  be 
marching  under  the  stars-and-stripes  in  place  of 
college  colors.  The  time  was  full  of  excitement. 
No  one  could  tell  what  the  morrow  might  bring 
forth.  Nevertheless  Ward  entered  upon  his  work 
with  steady  mind,  and  purpose  to  make  the  most 
for  the  present  of  the  opportunity  before  him. 

None  of  the  teachers  at  Brown  University  exer- 
cised an  influence  over  his  mind  equal  to  that  of 

45 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

"Uncle  Sain''  at  Phillips  Academy,  and  upon 
becoming  acquainted  with  the  less  exacting  ways 
of  class  work  at  the  University  he  looked  back 
with  particular  satisfaction  upon  the  mental  dis- 
cipline he  had  gained  in  his  preparatory  course. 
He  appreciated,  however,  the  men  under  whose 
infe'truction  he  now  came — a  group  of  really  emi- 
nent teachers,  whose  names  are  still  remembered 
in  the  field  of  education.  Barnas  Sears,  the  pres- 
ident, was  a  scholar  of  the  newer  school,  fresh 
from  the  influence  of  German  universities,  and 
eager  to  bring  to  bear  the  scholarship  and  ad- 
vanced thought  of  Germany  upon  the  advancing 
thought  of  his  own  country.  Whether  Ward's 
mind  at  this  time  was  influenced  b}^  any  tendency 
to  liberal  thinking  under  the  leadership  of  Bar- 
nas Sears  at  Brown  does  not  appear,  but  cerljiin 
it  is  that  soon  after  at  Andover  Seminary  he  was 
influenced  somewhat  in  that  direction,  and  with 
important  consequences  at  a  later  time  in  his 
life.  Ward's  teacher  in  Latin  and  Greek  at  the 
University  w^as  Albert  Harkness,  whose  Latin 
Grammar  afterward  became  familiar  to  every 
school  boy  in  the  land.  His  teacher  in  mathemat- 
ics was  another  noted  educator,  S.  S.  Greene, 
best  known,  however,  for  his  textbook  on  Eng- 
lish grammar.  Ward  thought  very  highly  of 
hjm,  not  only  for  his  mastery  of  his  subject,  but 
for  his  thorough  methods  of  teaching,  and  his 
genial  kindliness  and  dignity  of  character.  John 
L.  Lincoln,  afterwards  widely  known  for  his  schol- 
arly editions  of  Livy  and  Horace,  was  Ward's 
teacher  in  the  advanced  study  of  Latin,  optional 

46 


BROWN   UNIVERSITY 

in  the  course,  which  Ward  elected.  Another 
teacher  whom  Ward  appreciated  and  particularly 
enjoyed  was  Robinson  P.  Dunn,  the  professor  of 
logic  and  rhetoric,  an  exact  and  elegant  scholar, 
who  made  his  mark  in  the  world  of  letters.  Pro- 
fessor Dunn  was  a  man  who  had  the  "note  of 
urbanity."  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  "realized 
a  type  of  scholarship  but  seldom  witnessed  in  this 
country.  He  resembled  rather  the  fine  products 
of  the  English  universities,  those  ancient  seats 
whose  centuries  of  refinement  soften  the  very 
air  that  sighs  through  their  dreamy  quadrangles." 
It  is  evident  that  Ward,  in  these  student  days, 
had  that  sense  of  quality  and  refinement  in  the 
cultivated  mind,  which  was  afterward  a  distinct 
element  in  his  ideal  of  education  as  founder  of  a 
Western  college. 

But  along  with  his  mathematics,  and  Greek, 
and  logic,  and  other  learning,  another  and  very 
important  subject  took  possession  of  Ward's  mind 
in  the  first  year  of  his  course  at  Brown.  In  a 
word,  he  fell  in  love  with  the  lady  who  after- 
wards became  his  wife,  Miss  Sarah  Frances 
Wood,  of  Central  Falls,  Rhode  Island.  For  Jos- 
eph Ward  this  single  love  of  his  youth  proved  to 
be  "the  true  Promethean  fire,"  a  gift  indeed  from 
heaven  which  wonderfully  inspired  his  life  hence- 
forth. 

It  was  this  new  experience  of  his  college  days 
which  seems  to  have  called  forth  such  sentiments 
as  the  following,  which  are  taken  from  the  manu- 
script of  a  speech  or  toast  written  apparently  for 
some  fraternity  occasion: 

47 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

"It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  cherish  in  our 
inmost  heart  a  longing  for  any  good  without 
being  influenced  by  it.  We  will  find  our  lives 
gradually  shaping  according  to  the  outline  of  our 
dream. 

"Tennyson  was  not  the  only  man  who  has  had 
a  dream  of  fair  women.  We  do  the  same  each 
day  we  live,  only  with  this  difference,  that  while 
he  dreamed  and  sang  of  Helen  and  Iphegenia,  of 
Cleopatra  and  Rosamond,  we  dream  of  Marys 
and  Kates  and  Susans  and  Janes,  whom  we  meet 
every  day  and  sing  about  in  a  humbler  strain 
than  he,  but  none  the  less  earnest  and  true,  we 
trust.  They  surprise  us  by  peeping  from  the 
page  of  Herodotus;  or  when  we  read  of  Briseis 
with  our  lips,  our  hearts  keep  repeating  some 
other  name,  dearer  to  us  w^e  think  than  was  hers 
to  Agamemnon.  They  interfere  at  times  with  our 
clear  understanding  of  Sine  and  Tangent.  .  .  . 
We  look  at  them  far  above  and  strive  to  make 
ourselves  more  worthy  to  reach  them  and  stand 
beside  them  in  their  purity. 

"Are  we  not  made  better  by  such  dreams  as 
these?" 

Sarah  Wood  was  the  daughter  of  one  of  the 
first  families  of  the  place,  and  had  been  reared  in 
a  home  of  wealth,  refinement,  and  religious  cul- 
ture. Her  father,  the  Hon.  Joseph  Wood,  had 
been  for  many  years  engaged  in  the  cotton  manu- 
facturing business  at  Central  Falls,  along  the 
river.  He  was  a  man  widely  recognized  for  abil- 
ity and  integrity  of  character.  He  had  repeat- 
edly declined  to  accept   oflBcial    honors,    but   at 

48 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

length  consented  to  accept  the  nomination  for 
the  state  Senate,  and  was  elected  by  the  unani- 
mous vote  of  both  parties.  Mr.  Wood  was  for 
twenty-five  years  superintendent  of  the  Sunday 
School  in  the  church  of  which  Stewart  Sheldon 
was  now  pastor,  and  Joseph  Ward  about  this 
time  became  a  teacher  in  the  Sunday  School. 

In  this  way  the  Sheldons  and  the  Woods  were 
closely  associated  with  each  other,  and  the  indi- 
cations are  that  both  sides  looked  with  favor 
upon  the  prospect  of  a  match  between  the  young 
people.  Ward,  it  seems,  had  fallen  in  love  with 
Sarah  Wood  at  first  sight,  while  she,  at  first,  was 
by  no  means  favorably  impressed  with  him,  par- 
ticularly with  his  person,  which  she  considered 
very  homely.  It  was,  in  fact,  only  after  a  some- 
what extended  courtship  that  he  was  able  to  win 
her.  Jottings  in  his  diary  at  this  period  give 
some  hint  of  the  prim,  old-fashioned  circum- 
stances of  his  courting,  as  he  mingled  in  the  so- 
ciety of  the  young  people  of  the  parish.  There 
was  the  "Sewing  Circle"  of  the  church,  at  which 
the  ladies  met  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  gentle- 
men attended  in  the  evening  "to  entertain  the 
ladies,"  and  perchance  to  make  themselves  use- 
ful by  "holding  the  yarn."  There  was  the 
"Reading  Circle"  of  the  parish,  at  which  the 
young  people  gathered  to  read  aloud  improv- 
ing literature,  such  as  "Littell's  Living  Age," 
which  proceeding,  though  it  may  have  grown 
heavy  for  sprightly  young  blood,  was  rewarded 
by  the  pleasure  of  the  walk  home  in  the 
evening,   while   "the   moon   would   be   shining," 

49 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

as  Joseph  once  remarks,  "regardless  of  all 
expense."  There  were  teas,  and  church  socials, 
and  maple  sugar  parties,  and  concerts,  and  all 
such  affairs,  at  which  the  young  people  of  the 
parish  came  together  and  had  their  good  times; 
and  in  the  out-of-door  season,  picnic  parties  and 
drives  and  all  that.  Especially  delightful,  it 
would  seem,  were  certain  "Maying  parties"  that 
spring  by  some  of  the  young  people  of  Joseph's 
circle.  In  the  early  season  of  the  flowers  once, 
when  his  cousin  Eliza  and  Sarah  Wood  had  gone 
"a-Maying,"  he  writes  in  his  diary  of  receiving  "a 
bouquet  of  trailing  arbutus,  which  was  very  ac- 
ceptable; many  of  the  buds  have  opened  since  last 
night  and  now  it  looks  very  pretty."  One  of  these 
woodland  pilgrimages  he  records  with  particular 
fondness — "the  most  happy  day  I  have  passed  for 
many  months.  W^e  had  a  cosy  little  Maying- 
party  consisting  of  Sarah  Wood,  Euth  Wood, 
Eliza  and  myself:  we  went  down  to  the  Valley 
Falls  woods  (by  way  of  the  Smithfield  Pike)  and 
spent  about  three  hours  in  rambling  about,  pick- 
ing Mayflowers  and  mosses.  While  Miss  Sarah 
Wood  was  making  the  flowers  into  a  wreath  for 
Miss  Tracy,  whom  we  had  chosen  as  Queen  of  the 
May,  I  employed  myself  in  making  whistles  and 
tops,  the  former  from  a  chestnut  tree  under  which 
we  sat,  and  the  latter  from  acorns  and  splinters 
from  ^the  stump.' 

"We  came  home  by  the  Valley  Pike,  and  as 
Eliza  and  Sarah  [Sister  Sarah]  had  an  invitation 
to  take  tea  at  Mr.  Wood's,  we  went  there  at  once 
and  remained  until    meeting-time.     During    the 

50 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

meeting  I  was  exceedingly  sleepy,  as  were  also 
others  of  the  Maying  party:  Miss  Wood,  Eliza 
and  I  went  home  with  Miss  Tracy,  and  the  crown 
was  given  her  by  Miss  Wood. 

"Such  was  my  first  'May  Day,'  much  happier 
than  I  expected,  and  for  it  God  be  thanked." 

But  this  happy  time  of  love-making,  as  hinted  in 
Joseph's  diary  for  these  months,  was  now  sternly 
interrupted  by  the  call  to  arms  in  the  service 
of  the  Union.  It  was  soon  after  that  idyllic 
"May  Day"  that  the  war  spirit  at  Brown,  already 
tense  and  eager,  reached  its  highest  pitch  of 
excitement.  "It  was  not  possible,"  writes  Daugh- 
erty,  Ward's  classmate  and  friend,  "to  give  undi- 
vided attention  to  any  subject  of  thought.  In 
Brown  it  was  not  required  in  those  days.  The 
teachers  were  not  less  interested  in  the  saving 
of  the  nation  than  were  their  former  pupils  who 
were  then  daily  dying  to  save  the  nation.  George 
William  Curtis,  a  foster  son,  speaking  in  1864  at 
the  centennial  of  the  University,  pictured  vividly 
the  college  as  it  was  seen  in  War  days.  'Hope 
College  and  University  Hall  are  each  barracks 
four  stories  high,  crowded  with  sons  of  liberty; 
Manning  and  Rhode  Island  Halls  are  not  only 
schools  of  learning,  but  hospitals  for  thorough 
cure  of  lame  loyalty  and  paralytic  patriotism.' 
There  came  an  hour  when  these  'sons  of  liberty' 
could  not  remain  in  barracks.  It  was  in  the 
month  of  May,  '62.  To  those  eager  for  the  hourly 
bulletins  from  the  army  came  the  news  that  our 
forces  were  in  full  retreat  and  Washington  was 
in  peril.    It  seemed  the  crisis.     No  one  knew  but 

51 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

it  meant  the  triumph  of  secession.  No  Brown 
boy  cared  to  live  longer  if  it  did.  The  barracks 
were  emptied.  As  the  Tenth  Rhode  Island  was 
hurrying  through  New  York  City  on  the  way  to 
the  front,  some  one  asked  whether  all  the  high 
schools  in  Rhode  Island  had  enlisted.  Joseph 
Ward  was  carrying  a  musket  in  Company  D, 
about  to  take  a  course  not  laid  down  in  the  col- 
lege catalog,  yet  within  the  years  of  the  college 
course."  * 

The  Tenth  Rhode  Island  was  in  service  that 
summer  in  the  vicinity  of  Washington,  engaged 
to  garrison  seven  forts  and  batteries  surrounding 
the  city.  Ward's  company,  the  greater  part  of 
the  time,  was  stationed  at  one  of  these  defenses 
six  miles  from  the  city.  While  here,  he  was 
stricken  down  with  a  dangerous  sickness  which 
nearly  cost  him  his  life.  His  own  brief  account 
of  the  experience  set  down  in  his  diary  after  he 
left  his  sick-bed  and  returned  home  is  as  follows: 

"Toward  the  last  of  July  I  was  taken  with 
fever;  on  the  first  day  of  August  was  removed  to 
the  hospital;  there  I  was  more  comfortable,  but 
my  fever  increased  .  .  .  and  made  me  very 
weak  for  a  time.  Dr.  Wilcox  despaired  of  my 
life,  but  God  spared  me.  Through  the  influence 
of  Daugherty,  who  was  with  me  all  the  time,  I 
was  taken  from  the  hospital  on  the  18th  of  Aug- 
ust and  carried  to  a  private  house,  Mr.  Light- 
foot's;  there  I  was  attended  by  the  members  of 
the  family,  who  Avere  all  very  kind  to  me.  But  my 
chief  nurse  was  Daugherty,  who  was  with  me 

♦Memorial  Number  of  "The  Yankton  Student." 
52 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

night  and  day  almost  without  intermission.  He 
brought  my  food,  prepared  my  medicines,  and 
wrote  daily  almost  to  Sarah  [Mrs.  Sheldon]  giv- 
ing an  account  of  my  progress.  He  kept  me  from 
exerting  myself  too  soon  or  too  much,  and  was 
very  prudent  and  careful.  More  than  all,  as  I 
was  not  able  to  go  home  with  the  regiment,  he 
got  permission  from  the  Colonel  to  stay  with  me. 
The  regiment  left  the  26th  of  August  and  I  could 
not  go  till  the  4th  of  September." 

Daugherty's  letters  home  to  Sister  Sarah, 
which  have  been  affectionately  preserved  to  the 
present  time  through  her  hands  and  his,  reveal 
the  beautiful  and  devoted  service  of  that  faith- 
ful, lifelong  friend.  Always  afterward  in  refer- 
ring to  that  army  sickness  Ward  would  say  that 
it  was  Daugherty  who  saved  his  life. 

After  those  months  of  debilitating  sickness,  re- 
enlistment  was  out  of  the  question.  The  effects 
of  it  remained  for  a  long  time,  and  in  fact  never 
entirely  left  him.  After  a  protracted  period  of 
convalescence  he  was  able,  though  with  weariness 
and  difficulty,  to  resume  his  university  study. 
Through  that  year  and  the  two  following  we  find 
him  taking  part  again  in  the  social  affairs  of  the 
young  people  of  the  parish  at  Central  Falls,  and 
evidently  pursuing  his  courtship  of  Sarah  Wood. 
It  may  be  that  like  Desdemona  "she  loved  him 
for  the  dangers  he  had  passed,"  but  however  that 
was,  the  particular  decisive  question  was  never 
asked  and  answered  till  more  than  a  year  after 
his  return  from  military  service.  January  18, 
1864,  was  the  precise  date  of  his  proposal  and 

53 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

acceptance — as  evidenced  by  a  letter  which  he 
wrote  to  her  on  the  anniversary  of  their  troth- 
plight  twenty-five  years  afterward,  recalling  with 
a  lover's  enthusiasm  the  circumstances  of  that 
momentous  event. 

"You  and  I  walked  down  Clay  Street  together 
from  Mr.  Stearns',  and  I  said  the  words  that  had 
been  burning  in  my  heart  for  three  years.  It 
seems  to  me  like  yesterday — the  bridge,  the  rain, 
the  umbrella,  and  my  trip-hammer  heart.  'I'll  do 
it  before  I  set  foot  on  the  bridge.'  And  I  did  it 
— and  won!" 

But  in  the  meantime,  while  his  heart  was  thus 
filled  with  the  dreams  of  a  lover,  the  spirit  of 
patriotism,  crossed  as  it  had  been  by  the  attack 
of  sickness,  was  not  to  be  denied  some  form  of 
expression  in  service  for  his  country.  During 
the  summer  vacation  of  '63,  again  in  '64,  and  for 
a  short  time  in  the  spring  of  '65,  Ward  enlisted 
as  a  "delegate"  in  the  work  of  the  United  States 
Christian  Commission,  a  religious  philanthropic 
organization  for  aiding  in  the  care  of  the  sick  and 
wounded  on  battlefield  and  in  hospital,  and  sup- 
plementing the  work  of  army  chaplains  in  their 
ministrations  to  the  men  of  their  charge.  The 
work  of  this  society  was  extensive  in  scope,  and 
deeply  appreciated  by  officers  and  soldiers  as  well 
as  by  the  country  at  large,  especially  in  those 
times  of  agony  and  confusion  following  some 
great  battle,  when  the  utmost  endeavors  of  sur- 
geons, hospital  stewards,  and  chaplains  were 
desperately  unequal  to  the  demands  made  upon 
them. 

54 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

For  this  labor  of  love  and  mercy  Ward  was 
especially  qualified.  From  boyhood  days  when 
he  watched  by  his  mother's  bedside,  and  through- 
out his  life,  he  was  remembered  for  his  power  of 
sympathy  and  for  a  gentleness  of  voice  and  man- 
ner in  ministering  to  the  sick  like  that  of  a  wo- 
man. Moreover  he  possessed  tact,  and  common 
sense,  and  an  executive  ability  which  fitted  him 
for  performing  successfully  the  trying  duties  of 
this  army  service.  At  Hagerstown,  Maryland,  and 
vicinity,  in  the  track  of  Lee's  retreat  from  Gettys- 
burg, w^here  he  was  stationed  in  July  and  Aug- 
ust, '63,  after  the  awful  carnage  of  that  battle,  he 
soon  was  made  chief  of  the  hospital  work  of  the 
Commission,  with  charge  of  quantities  of  supplies 
and  various  important  responsibilities.  The  fol- 
lowing summer  of  '64,  first  in  the  defenses  around 
Washington,  and  afterward  at  City  Point,  Vir- 
ginia, Grant's  headquarters  in  his  operations 
before  Richmond,  Ward  continued  in  the  service 
of  the  Christian  Commission,  at  the  latter  station 
being  appointed  captain  of  the  delegates  for  the 
second  army  corps,  with  supervision  over  large 
work  in  hospital  and  field. 

Some  impression  of  the  character  of  this  exper- 
ience may  be  obtained  from  a  few  extracts  from 
his  journal  and  notebooks: 

"Chambersburg,  Pa.,  July  15,  1863. 

"Got  acquainted  with  a  soldier  by  holding  his 
*dorg.'  He  rewarded  me  by  showing  me  the 
pup's  teeth  and  seemed  to  think  that  he  had  put 
me  under  great  obligations :  but  better  than  that 

55 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

he  asked  me  for  a  testament,  and  as  I  had  none 
very  gladly  took  a  small  prayer  book." 

"Hagerstown,  Md.,  July  19,  1863. 

"Spent  the  whole  day  in  unpacking  the  stores, 
delivering  them  to  the  surgeons,  and  carrying 
them  to  the  sick  in  the  different  hospitals.  Had  a 
little  altercation  with  a  rebel  surgeon,  who  came 
asking  for  brandy  and  waxed  wroth  at  not  receiv- 
ing it." 

"The  Same,  July  21,  1863. 

"Spent  a  large  part  of  the  day  in  talking  with 
the  men  and  writing  letters  for  them.  Wrote 
seven  and  furnished  material  for  a  dozen  more, 
so  that  I  had  quite  a  mail.  The  boys  nearly  all 
want  me  to  write  to  their  mother,  and  they  also 
charge  me  not  to  let  her  know  how  badly  they 
are  wounded." 

"The  Same,  Aug.  1,  1863. 

"One  of  the  patients,  Miran  Judy,  died  Thurs- 
day morning.  His  father  came  the  night  before 
and  was  with  him  till  he  died.  I  got  a  coffin  for 
him  and  transportation  to  Chambersburg.  Have 
been  to  the  rebel  hospital  several  times  adminis- 
tering stimulants." 

"aty  Point,  Va.,  July  22,  1864. 

"We  the  undersigned  promise  not  to  use  any 
intoxicating  drinks  as  a  beverage,  with  the  help 
of  God. 

"Joseph  Ward. 
Wm.  H.  Wait." 
56 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

"The  one  who  signed  this  pledge  with  me  is 
one  who  has  fallen  from  grace  through  strong 
drink.  I  conversed  with  him  and  he  promised 
to  sign  the  pledge  if  I  would.  May  God  help  us 
both  to  keep  it  and  to  grow  in  grace  every  day." 

"The  Same,  July  25,  1864. 
"On  my  return  passed  the  cemetery  as  they 
were  about  to  bury  a  man  without  any  service. 
I  read  a  few  verses  from  the  7th  of  Revelations 
and  made  a  few  remarks,  closing  with  prayer.  It 
seemed  very  sad  and  solemn  to  me  to  bury  an 
unknown  soldier,  with  nothing  but  his  blanket 
about  him,  and  far  from  his  friends  at  home." 

"The  Same,  July  26,  1864. 

"Very  many  came  in  from  the  front.  We  fired 
up  the  Christian  Commission  Coffee  Pot*  and 
drew  it  around  among  the  men,  who  received  us 
with  many  expressions  of  thankfulness.  Dr. 
Hammond,  surgeon  of  the  Division,  thanked  me 
for  our  assistance." 

"The  Same,  Aug.  5,  1864. 

"The  Second  Corps  left  their  post  at  the  front, 
and  started  for — somewhere,  and  on  their  way 
passed  by  here  and  filled  up  our  hospital.  600  were 
brought  in.  We  made  tea  and  coffee  for  them 
and  carried  crackers  along  with  us.  Having  some 
left  we  took  it  to  some  on  the  road.  Worked  till 
1:30  A.M.  Dr.  Hammond  thanked  me  for  our 
assistance.  All  the  surgeons  were  very  thankful 
for  our  assistance." 

•This  coffee  pot  on  wheels,  it  seems,  was  an  affair  of 
Ward's  invention  and  became  quite  famous. 

57 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

So  passed  these  vacation  months,  and  so  passed 
these  four  years  at  the  tlniversity  from  '61  to  '65. 
Broken  and  imperfect  as  his  college  course  was, 
these  were  years  of  rich  experience  which  could 
not  fail  to  call  forth  his  best  powers.  His  engage- 
ment with  Sarah  Wood  from  this  time  forth  shed 
inspiring  radiance  upon  his  path.  His  later  army 
service  under  the  Christian  Commission,  religious 
and  patriotic  in  one,  in  the  midst  of  scenes  of 
suffering  and  sorrow  and  death  never  to  be  for- 
gotten, was  a  training  in  sympathy  and  in  the 
knowledge  of  deep  things  of  the  heart,  to  which 
a  nature  like  his  was  unusually  responsive  More 
than  ever  his  life  is  now  dominated  by  earnest- 
ness of  devotion  and  purpose,  which  augurs  the 
highest  fruitfulness  for  the  remaining  period  of 
his  education,  his  theological  course  at  Andover 
Seminary. 

His  friend  Daugherty  relates  an  incident  which 
is  characteristic  of  Ward  and  his  spirit  of  patriot- 
ism at  this  time,  "Edward  Everett  Hale  published 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  in  War  days  his  most 
thrilling  story,  ^A  Man  Without  a  Country.' 
Ward  read  it  and  burned  with  indignation 
against  our  government  for  so  abusing  a  man, 
even  though  the  man  was  a  criminal.  At  first  he 
could  not  be  convinced  that  the  story  was  fic- 
titious, but  when  Mr.  Hale  declared  it  a  pure 
invention,  Ward  turned  his  indignation,  but  little 
modified,  against  Mr.  Hale,  for  having  trifled  with 
the  feelings  of  patriotic  people  by  such  an  inven- 
tion. The  faith  in  the  truth  of  that  which  on 
the  surface  appeared  to  be  true,  the  indignation 

58 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

against  the  Government  for  which  he  imperilled 
his  life,  the  condemnation  of  a  lie  told  for  any 
purpose — these  reveal  the  man,  uncritical,  but  a 
lover  of  truth  and  a  passionate,  energetic  devotee 
to  what  seemed  to  him  right,  a  modified  Puritan 
of  a  later  age." 


The  fall  of  1865,  following  his  graduation  from 
Brown,  Ward  entered  Andover  Theological  Sem- 
inary, from  which  he  graduated  in  the  class  of 
1868.  The  circumstances  of  his  education  up  to 
this  point  had  been,  as  we  have  seen,  fortunate 
and  inspiring;  and  now  his  course  at  Andover 
Seminary  was  all  that  could  be  desired  for  the 
ideal  rounding  out  of  his  preparation  for  the  min- 
istry. Andover  Seminary  represented  the  his- 
toric strength  and  the  best  traditions  of  Congre- 
gationalism. Itself  an  offshoot  of  the  still  older 
Phillips  Academy  of  Andover,  it  was  the  oldest 
theological  seminary  in  the  country,  and  the 
mother  of  similar  institutions  that  have  since 
been  established.  From  the  beginning  it  had  stood 
with  increasing  power  and  influence  for  the  the- 
ology handed  down  from  the  New  England  Fath- 
ers, in  opposition  to  the  tide  of  Unitarianism 
which  rose  and  for  a  time  flourished  so  alarm- 
ingly in  that  part  of  the  country.  The  time  was 
indeed  near  at  hand  when  the  historic  Seminary 
was  to  break  with  the  orthodoxy  of  the  past,  and 
become  the  world-famous  champion  of  the  "new 
theology,"  or  "progressive  orthodoxy"  of  a 
younger  school  of  theologians,  and  in  that  cause 

59 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

to  suffer  dire  wrack  and  martyrdom.  But  when 
Ward  was  there  as  a  student  the  older  men,  those 
who  had  hitherto  made  Andover  great  and 
increasingly  victorious  in  its  sway  over  the 
churches,  were  still  in  the  height  of  their  power. 
Chief  among  these  men  of  the  older  school  were 
the  distinguished  Professor  Edwards  Amasa 
Park,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  great  school  of 
New  England  theologians  and  one  of  the  most  in- 
fluential teachers  of  his  generation,  and  Profes- 
sor Austin  Phelps,  of  the  chair  of  Sacred  Rhetoric, 
also  one  of  the  great  teachers  of  his  time,  who  be- 
came president  of  the  Seminary  in  1869.  The  newer 
men,  however,  who  were  soon  to  become  leaders 
in  the  Seminary  and  carry  the  day  for  "progres- 
sive orthodoxy,"  were  already  on  the  ground,  and 
recognized  for  their  scholarship  and  devotion. 
Most  notable  among  these  was  Professor  Egbert 
C.  Smyth,  just  entered  upon  his  professorship  of 
Ecclesiastical  History,  later  conspicuous  as  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  "Andover  Review"  and  a 
great  leader  in  the  progressive  movement  in  the- 
ology. 

The  fame  of  the  Seminary  and  its  teachers  at 
this  time  had  attracted  to  its  halls  a  most  remark- 
able body  of  students,  and  with  a  considerable 
number  of  the  finest  minds  among  them  Ward 
formed  abiding  friendships.  An  impression  of  the 
inspiring  character  of  student  society  at  the  Sem- 
inary in  those  days  may  be  had  by  a  glance  at  the 
names  of  a  few  of  those  who  have  since  become 
well-known  leaders  in  lines  of  educational  and 
religious    activity,    for   instance   the    following: 

60 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

President  William  J.  Tucker,  of  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege; Dr.  C.  F.  P.  Bancroft,  principal  of  Phillips 
Academy;  Professor  John  P.  Taylor  and  Profes- 
sor John  W.  Churchill,  of  Andover  Seminary;  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Newman  Smyth,  of  the  First  Church  of 
New  Haven,  Connecticut;  the  Rev.  Dr.  James 
Brand,  of  the  First  Church,  Oberlin,  Ohio;  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Henry  M.  Tenney,  of  the  Second  Church, 
Oberlin,  Ohio;  President  Edward  T.  Bartlett,  of 
the  Episcopal  Divinity  School,  Philadelphia;  the 
Rev.  Dr.  James  G.  Daugherty,  sometime  presi- 
dent of  Colorado  College;  the  Rev.  Thomas  L.  Gu- 
lick,  noted  missionary  of  the  American  Board; 
the  Rev.  John  Edgar,  Ph.D.,  president  of  Wilson 
College,  Pennsylvania;  Ezra  Brainard,  LL.D., 
president  of  Middleborough  College;  President 
George  Harris,  of  Amherst  College;  Professor 
George  T.  Ladd,  of  Yale  University;  the  Rev.  Dr. 
DeWitt  S.  Clark,  of  the  Tabernacle  Church,  Sa- 
lem, Massachusetts;  and  Professor  George  H. 
Palmer,  of  Harvard  University. 

The  circle  of  friends  he  formed  at  Andover,  in 
Academy  and  Seminary,  together  with  a  few 
others  of  kindred  faith  and  vision  with  himself, 
were  the  ones  whom  Ward  of  Dakota  used  to 
speak  of  as  the  Wise  Men  of  the  East.  They  were 
the  friends  who  watched  over  the  birth  of  Yank- 
ton College  from  afar  with  loving  auspices,  and 
with  their  means,  their  influence,  and  their  pray- 
ers aided  year  by  year  in  its  upbuilding. 

It  is  always  to  be  remembered — and  in  connec- 
tion with  Joseph  Ward  the  fact  is  particularly 
significant — that  Andover   Seminary  was   domi- 

61 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

nated  by  the  missionary  spirit.  The  influence  of 
the  years  he  spent  there  helped  to  make  him  the 
great  champion  of  missions  which  he  was  in  all 
his  after  career.  This  historic  institution  had 
been  from  the  first  an  inspiring  centre  of  mission- 
ary faith  and  works.  The  "American  Board," 
earliest  organization  in  this  country  for  carrying 
on  foreign  missions,  was  nourished  in  its  Infancj' 
on  Andover's  "Sacred  Hill."  A  daughter  of  one 
of  the  old  professors  at  Andover,  writing  not  long 
ago  in  tender  reminiscence  on  the  subject  of  the 
missionary  spirit  there,  said:  "Their  faith  in  the 
ultimate  conversion  of  the  world  was  so  strong, 
so  living  and  active,  that  it  colored  the  whole 
Andover  life — brooding  over  the  Hill  with  a 
power  as  compelling  as  it  was  invisible.  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  prayer  was  ever  offered,  public  or 
private,  by  any  of  the  pious  souls  there,  which 
lacked  an  earnest  petition  for  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  No  one  object  lay  more  near  the  heart; 
no  other  claimed  the  peculiar  warmth  of  affection 
lavished  upon  this.  I  think  I  am  not  wrong  in 
saying  that  for  years  Andover  was  the  heart  of 
missions."  * 

Ward's  career  was  dominated  by  that  same  liv- 
ing and  active  faith  in  "the  ultimate  conversion 
of  the  world" — a  faith  whose  power  and  measure 
was  like  that  of  the  saints  of  old  Andover  and 
akin  to  that  of  the  inspired  prophets  and  leaders 
in  any  period  of  the  history  of  mankind. 

The  principal  account  of  Ward's  course  at  An- 

♦  Sarah  Stuart  Robbins,  in  "The  C!ongregationalist,"  Sep- 
tember 3,  1910. 

62 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

dover  Seminary  was  written  for  the  Memorial 
Number  of  "The  Yankton  Student"  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  C.  F.  P.  Bancroft,  his  life-long  friend,  and  for 
a  more  particular  impression  of  those  years  a 
portion  of  that  article  may  here  be  quoted: 

"Mr.  Ward  came  into  this  inspiring  atmos- 
phere and  did  his  full  share  to  maintain  and 
intensify  it.  He  had  known  Andover  as  a  student 
in  the  Academy  for  three  years,  and  he  was 
returning  as  an  old  friend  to  haunts  that  were 
dear  and  familiar,  to  persons  and  families  he 
knew,  to  religious  activities  in  which  he  had  been 
engaged  before;  he  had  committed  himself  wholly 
and  heartily  to  the  work  of  the  ministry;  he  was 
surrounded  by  intimate  friends  whom  he  had 
known  previously  in  school  and  college,  and  he 
added  to  them  choice  souls  whom  he  was  meet- 
ing for  the  first  time;  he  had  lived  in  the  West 
and  in  the  East,  and  campaigned  in  the  South, 
and  he  knew  that  wide  fields  were  white  for  the 
harvest;  he  was  in  perfect  health;  he  was  happily 
engaged  to  the  lady  who  became  his  wife;  he  was 
twenty-seven.  It  would  be  diflflcult  to  imagine 
conditions  more  favorable  for  three  years  of  pa- 
tient, faithful,  loving  preparation  for  his  great 
work. 

"As  a  theological  student  he  showed  the  same 
traits  which  made  him  subsequently  the  effective 
home  missionary,  the  faithful  pastor,  the  enter- 
prising and  sagacious  college  president.  There 
was  the  same  candor  of  judgment,  the  same 
frankness  and  openness  of  expression,  quickness 
of  sympathy,  abounding  good  humor,  fertility  of 

63 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

resources,  the  same  turn  for  practical  business, 
the  same  integrity  and  solidity  of  character,  and 
robust  but  gracious  piety.  Those  who  knew 
what  Dr.  Ward  was  in  Dakota  can  readily  under- 
stand what  he  must  have  been  in  the  Seminary. 

"In  the  special  work  of  a  theological  student  he 
was  faithful  to  the  main  purpose  of  preparing 
himself  for  the  Christian  ministry.  This  one 
thing  he  did,  and  everything  else  was  subordinate 
and  accessory.  He  had  no  specialty;  he  was  an 
'all-round'  student.  The  Bible,  church  life  and 
church  history,  theology  proper,  the  theory  and 
art  of  preaching,  the  practical  work  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  in  the  world — he  gave  himself  to  all 
of  them  with  conscientious  painstaking.  There  is 
no  significance  in  the  circumstance  that  his  grad- 
uation thesis  was  on  'The  Messianic  Significance 
of  Exodus  III,  14,'  but  there  is  in  the  fact  that  he 
was  given  the  honorable  first  place  on  the  pro- 
gram. 

"His  interest  in  missions  was  pronounced,  and 
he  took  an  active  part  in  the  Society  for  Inquiry 
and  became  one  of  its  best  officers.  For  this  So- 
ciety he  prepared  a  'Sketch  of  Dr.  Grant  of  the 
Mission  to  the  Nestorians,'  and  a  'Historical 
Survey  of  Missions  for  the  Year  1866.'  His  inter- 
est in  home  missions  was  equally  great.  The 
Porter  Rhetorical  Society  was  distinctly  forensic 
and  literary,  and  although  he  took  some  part  in 
it,  he  seems  to  have  had  less  interest  in  it  because 
it  was  more  remote  from  the  work  he  had  in 
hand.  Yet  many  can  recall  the  hearty  way  in 
which  he  'unbent  from  sterner  thoughts,'  perhaps 

64 


BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

in  Newman  Smyth's  or  DeWitt  Clark's  room  a 
half  hour  after  dinner,  when  literature  or  politics 
led  up  to  sharp  debate,  or  witty  talk  burst  into 
peals  of  laughter.  He  was  always  in  the  class 
prayer  meeting,  and  there  he  took  a  foremost 
part  with  a  rare  sense  of  privilege  and  duty. 

"He  resumed,  too,  in  the  first  part  of  his  course 
his  activity  in  mission  Sunday  Schools,  in  neigh- 
borhood prayer  meetings,  and  in  house-to-house 
visitation.  At  the  end  of  his  middle  year  he  was 
licensed  to  preach,  and  he  supplied  acceptably 
many  churches  one  or  more  Sabbaths  during  his 
senior  year.  His  vacations  he  always  spent  in 
work.  The  first  spring  vacation  of  six  weeks 
while  in  the  Seminary  he  spent  in  the  employ  of 
the  Home  Missionary  Society  among  the  moun- 
tains of  Vermont,  and  many  a  weary  mile  he 
tramped  through  snows  and  slush  in  his  ministra- 
tion to  the  scattered  fiock  of  this  wide  country 
parish.  The  hundreds  of  boys  in  the  Academy 
gave  him  a  large  field  close  at  hand  for  using  in 
unconventional  ways  his  rare  gifts  of  sympathy 
and  tact  in  encouraging  young  disciples  and  influ- 
encing the  wayward  and  the  thoughtless  to 
choose  the  right  paths." 


CHAPTER  V 
COMING  TO  DAKOTA 


CHAPTER  V 
COMING  TO  DAKOTA 

AUGUST  12,  1868,  shortly  following  his  grad- 
uation from  Andover  Theological  Seminary, 
Joseph  Ward  married  Sarah  Frances  Wood, 
at  Central  Falls,  Rhode  Island.  The  wedding  was 
a  beautiful  one,  surrounded  by  circumstances  of 
wealth  and  culture,  and  the  occasion  full  of  great 
joy  and  promise.  The  bride  was  a  lovely  and  ac- 
complished girl,  of  pure  Christian  spirit  and  devo- 
tion, and  the  young  minister,  like  herself  of  ex- 
cellent New  England  blood,  was  splendidly 
trained  for  his  work,  and  already  marked  for  a 
bright  future.  Both  were  ready  and  glad  to  go 
to  whatever  place  they  might  be  called,  however 
remote  and  hard  it  might  be. 

It  was  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  devotion  and 
courage  animating  them  both  that  they  soon  after 
accepted  an  appointment  to  missionary  service  at 
Yankton,  the  capital  of  Dakota  Territory,  at  that 
time  a  village  of  a  few  hundred  inhabitants  on 
the  far  western  border  of  civilization.  The  mat- 
ter of  their  going  to  that  particular  outpost  of  the 
world  seems  to  have  been  directed  by  providence. 
A  missionary  Congregational  church  had  been  or- 
ganized at  Yankton  early  in  the  same  year,  1868, 

69 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

the  first  church  of  that  denomination  in  Dakota, 
and  a  call  at  that  time  had  been  extended  to 
Joseph  Ward,  of  Andover  Seminary,  to  become  its 
pastor.  This  he  had  declined,  being  unwilling  to 
quit  the  Seminary  before  completing  his  course; 
and  also  at  the  same  time  had  declined  a  call 
from  the  American  Board  to  go  as  a  missionary 
to  Turkey — for  the  same  reason.  When  the  time 
arrived  of  his  graduation  from  Andover,  however, 
another  opportunity  opened  before  him  of  the 
First  Congregational  Church  at  Oakland,  Califor- 
nia. This  he  accepted,  and  soon  after  had  his 
books  packed  for  the  long  sea-voyage  "round  the 
Horn" — for  that  was  before  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  was  completed.  Then  suddenly,  just  as 
Mr.  Ward  and  his  bride  were  on  the  point  of  sail- 
ing, word  was  received  not  to  come — that  the 
church  had  called  another  man.  It  was  a  deep 
disappointment.  Yet  no  sooner  was  the  door 
closed  in  that  direction,  than,  strange  to  say,  it 
opened  again  in  the  direction  of  Yankton.  He 
now  accepted  the  appointment  to  that  place,  and 
after  visiting  relatives  in  Brooklyn,  western  New 
York,  and  Michigan,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ward  set  out 
on  their  journey  to  Dakota. 

Something  of  the  romance  and  adventure  of 
the  prospect  before  their  minds  as  they  travelled 
westward  may  be  realized  when  we  remember 
that  the  region  they  were  bound  for  was  still  the 
almost  unlimited  range  of  myriads  of  buffalo,  and 
the  vast  hunting-ground  of  the  yet  unconquered 
tribes  of  the  Sioux.  It  was  only  six  decades 
before  this  time  that  Lewis  and  Clark  had  pushed 

70 


COMING  TO  DAKOTA 

their  way  up  the  broad  Missouri  on  their  great 
expedition,  through  a  country  practically  un- 
known, camping  one  August  day  near  the  very 
spot  where  Yankton  now  stands.  It  was  only 
seven  years  before  Joseph  Ward's  coming  that 
the  Federal  Government  had  organized  the  Terri- 
tory of  Dakota,  embracing  at  that  time  the  pres- 
ent states  of  North  and  South  Dakota,  Wyoming, 
Montana,  and  Eastern  Idaho.  At  the  time  Jo- 
seph and  Sarah  Ward  came,  that  which  is  now 
the  magnificent  agricultural  domain  of  North  and 
South  Dakota,  with  the  Black  Hills  and  all  their 
mineral  wealth,  was  still  practically  unexplored, 
and  the  only  settlements  were  along  a  little  strip 
of  the  Missouri  valley  for  a  hundred  miles  or  so 
above  Sioux  City,  and  a  still  smaller  isolated  be- 
ginning far  away  to  the  north  in  the  valley  of  the 
Pembina  River.  According  to  the  United  States 
Census  of  1870,  two  years  after  their  arrival,  the 
total  white  population  of  the  Territory,  includ- 
ing soldiers,  Indian  agents,  and  territorial  oflS- 
cials,  was  only  fourteen  thousand  souls. 

Such  was  the  Dakota  of  1868,  the  land  of  prom- 
ise to  which  Joseph  Ward  had  been  sent.  All 
Dakota  was  his  parish!  The  officers  of  the  Home 
Missionary  Society  in  New  York  had  sent  him 
forth  to  pre-empt  the  Territory  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord. 

Their  mission  included  not  only  churches  but 
schools  in  the  new  land.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ward, 
true  to  their  ancestry  and  training,  entered  upon 
their  work  in  the  conscious  spirit  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  and  "realizing  that  history  repeats  itself 

71 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

in  the  founding  of  every  new  state  as  'westward 
the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way,'  these  Pilgrims 
believed  in  the  planting  of  the  church  and  school- 
house  side  by  side."  It  was  no  insignificant  fact 
that  old  Dr.  Badger,  secretary  of  the  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  in  New  York,  when  he  gave  Jo- 
seph Ward  his  commission,  had  specially  charged 
him  that  he  should  "see  to  it  that  the  cause  of 
Christian  education  be  vigorously'  carried  on  in 
the  great  Northwest.-'  It  will  be  seen  hereafter 
with  what  fidelity  and  utter  devotion  he  fulfilled 
that  trust. 

These  were  things  to  dream  on  as  they  jour- 
neyed westward.  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  was  as  far 
as  the  railroad  went.  There  they  spent  the  night, 
and  at  five  o'clock  the  next  morning  took  the 
stage  for  the  sixty-five  mile  trip  up  the  Missouri 
valley  to  the  place  of  their  destination.  The  scene 
of  that  journey  was  the  same  as  when  the  old 
explorers  and  fur  traders  first  gazed  upon  it,  its 
great  primeval  expanse  scarcely  yet  disturbed  by 
any  sign  of  human  habitation.  All  day  long  they 
travelled  over  the  broad  bottom  land,  with  views 
of  the  river  in  its  majestic  sweep,  and  endless 
stretches  of  sandbar,  reddening  here  and  there 
with  autumn  color  in  the  low  overgrowth  of  wil- 
low, while  on  either  side  of  the  level  valley  the 
great  bluffs,  in  the  brown  tints  of  the  prairie 
grasses,  rolled  in  billows  to  the  uplands  beyond. 
Scarcely  a  tree  was  to  be  seen,  except  for  the 
scrubby  plum  brush  fringing  the  ravines.  Now 
and  then  they  would  see  a  settler's  cabin — but 
northward,  as  a  Yankton  gentleman  who  travelled 

72 


COMING  TO   DAKOTA 

with  them  that  day  took  occasion  to  observe,  with 
a  wave  of  his  hand  in  that  direction,  there  was  not 
a  white  man  between  them  and  the  British  possessions 
— which,  altliough  a  rather  sweeping  statement, 
was  doubtless  almost  literally  true.  In  the 
course  of  the  journey  they  passed  through  the  lit- 
tle villages  of  Elk  Point  and  Vermillion,  new  set- 
tlements like  Yankton,  started  only  a  few  years 
before,  and  at  the  James  River,  four  miles  from 
their  destination,  the  stage  was  ferried  across  the 
stream  in  a  flatboat.  At  the  end  of  the  long  day, 
"just  as  one  of  those  gorgeous  sunsets — famous 
in  this  latitude — was  fading  into  dusk,  and  the 
lights  were  beginning  to  twinkle  from  the  win- 
dows of  every  little  cabin  in  the  settlement,  the 
lumbering  old  stagecoach  rattled  into  Yankton, 
bringing  among  other  passengers  the  new  mis- 
sionary minister  and  his  wife  from  the  Far  East." 
What  happened  next,  and  w^hat  the  coming  of 
Joseph  Ward  meant  in  the  life  of  one,  at  least,  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Yankton,  is  recorded  in  an  arti- 
cle published  many  years  afterward  in  "The 
Monthly  South  Dakotan"  entitled  "Recollections 
of  the  Mother  Church,"  by  Deacon  Ephraim 
Miner,  who  became  Dr.  Ward's  lifelong  friend. 
"On  the  sixth  of  November,  a  few"  minutes  after 
the  stage  arrived  from  Sioux  City,  a  young  man 
came  into  the  store  and  walked  back  to  where  I 
was  standing.  He  was  somewhat  over  six  feet 
in  height,  broad-shouldered,  well-proportioned, 
plainly  but  neatly  dressed,  and  looked  as  if  he 
might  be  a  travelling  man  or  a  young  lawyer  or 
doctor,  or  possibly    a   young   preacher.     At   all 

73 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

events  he  looked  like  a  man  who  could  'do  things.' 
He  said  he  was  looking  for  a  man  named  Miner. 
I  told  him  that  my  name  was  Miner,  and  then  he 
told  me  that  his  name  was  Ward,  and  somehow 
we  got  hold  of  each  other's  hands,  and  for  twenty- 
one  years  and  one  month  we  walked  and  worked 
together  hand  in  hand  as  closely  as  any  two 
brothers  could,  until  I  sat  at  the  bedside  and 
held  his  hand  and  felt  the  life  go  out  of  it;  and 
when  I  go  where  he  is  I  expect  he  will  be  waiting 
to  take  me  by  the  hand  as  I  did  him  when  he  came 
to  Yankton." 

Deacon  Miner  was  one  of  the  ten  original  mem- 
bers of  the  Yankton  church.  Another  of  the  ten 
was  Mr.  A.  G.  Fuller,  one  of  the  substantial  men 
of  the  town;  and  it  was  at  his  home,  a  frame 
house  fronting  the  river,  quite  large  and  elegant 
for  those  times,  that  the  minister  and  his  wife 
were  received  for  board  and  lodging  that  first 
winter.  The  one  window  of  their  second-floor 
room  looked  to  the  East,  whence  they  might  be- 
hold of  a  morning  the  sunrise  over  the  lonely 
sand-bars  and  the  Nebraska  hills,  and  in  the  fore- 
ground nearly  all  that  there  was  of  the  village  of 
Yankton — a  few  stores,  and  scattering  log  cabins, 
with  the  white  points  of  Indian  tepees  among  the 
plum  brush,  close  in  by  the  river  bank. 

The  services  of  the  newly-organized  church  were 
being  held  that  fall  in  the  old  Capitol  Building 
(now  vanished),  an  unpainted  frame  structure 
which  stood  opposite  the  present  site  of  the  Yank- 
ton Public  Library.  There,  on  the  8th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1868,  in  the  bare,  plain,  lower  room  of  the 

74 


COMING   TO   DAKOTA 

Territorial  House  of  Representatives,  standing 
behind  a  pulpit  improvised  of  a  dry-goods  box, 
decentl}^  draped  with  cambric,  Joseph  Ward 
preached  his  first  sermon  in  Dakota.  He  took  for 
his  text  1  Corinthians,  3:11,  "For  other  founda- 
tion can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  which  is 
Jesus  Christ."  He  records  in  his  diary  that  the 
day  was  very  stormy,  cold  and  snowing,  and  that 
thirty-three  were  present  at  the  morning  service. 
There  were  six  present  at  the  prayer  meeting  the 
following  Wednesday  evening.  Mrs.  Ward  has 
written  of  how  "the  weekly  prayer  meetings 
began  in  the  old  Capitol  Building,  and  were 
chiefly  attended  by  the  minister  and  his  wife  and 
the  sexton,  faithful  James  Witherspoon,  a  char- 
acter in  his  way;  but  how  grandly  he  stood  by 
the  pastor  in  those  lonely,  early  days!  Some- 
times there  came  to  the  prayer  meeting  a  veri- 
table 'mother  in  Israel'  with  her  family  of  little 
children  trailing  along  after  her  into  the  seat. 
But  she  was  a  busy,  overworked  mother,  and 
could  not  always  come  to  the  prayer  meeting, 
although  her  heart  was  with  us  always."  The 
bad  weather  continued,  according  to  Mr.  Ward's 
diary,  with  a  succession  of  stormy  Sabbaths  and 
slender  audiences.  It  may  well  have  seemed  to 
him  at  times  in  those  "lonely,  early  days"  that 
the  prospect  for  the  church  was  not  the  brightest, 
"If  we  are  to  have  any  blessing,"  he  says  once,  "it 
must  come  from  the  Lord  surely,  for  vain  is  the 
help  of  man  in  this  place." 

The  scene  of  those  services  in  the  old  Capitol 
Building  must  have  been  in  strange  contrast  with 

75 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

sessions  of  those  early  legislatures,  when  the 
making  of  laws  and  the  procedure  of  courts  was 
just  beginning  to  supplant  the  regime  of  vigilance 
committees,  and  when  booted  and  spurred  states- 
men from  the  up-river  counties  were  wont  to 
invite  attention  to  their  remarks  at  the  muzzle  of 
a  six-shooter.  It  was  perhaps  a  sign  of  milder 
days  that  were  coming  that,  upon  the  convening 
of  the  legislature  a  month  after  his  arrival  in 
Yankton,  Mr.  Ward  found  his  audiences  largely 
augmented  by  members  of  that  body.  He  notes 
also,  in  a  memorandum  of  one  of  his  Sunday  ser- 
vices about  this  time  that  "several  Indians  and 
squaws  were  present."  Another  sign  of  advanc- 
ing civilization  in  Yankton  was  that  about  this 
time  the  voice  of  a  church  bell  was  first  heard  in 
the  place.  The  manner  of  its  acquisition  was 
both  picturesque  and  providential.  "About  that 
time,"  Mrs.  Ward  writes,  "the  steamer  'Imperial' 
burned*  a  few  miles  up  the  river,  and  among  the 
other  wreckage  saved  was  the  bell,  which  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Judge  Brookings  and  he  pre- 
sented it  to  the  church.  We  immediately  mounted 
it  on  the  old  Capitol  Building,  and  you  may  be 
sure  we  felt  quite  proud  when,  for  the  first  time 
in  Yankton,  the  people  could  gather  *at  the  sound 
of  the  church-going    bell.' "     That    old    historic 

*Mrs.  Ward's  account  is  probably  inaccurate  in  this  par- 
ticular. It  seems  instead  that  the  steamer  "Imperial"  was 
frozen  into  the  ice  a  few  miles  above  Yankton,  and  was  there 
attached  for  debt,  and  the  bell  and  other  movables  taken  by 
creditors.  But  it  was  that  old  "Imperial"  bell  which  was 
mounted  on  the  old  Capitol  Building.  I  lack  proof  for  the 
further  statement  that  the  same  bell  hangs  on  the  Yankton 
High  School  to-day,  but  several  old  timers  believe  it  to  be 
the  same  one. 

76 


COMING   TO   DAKOTA 

bell  still  rings  in  Yankton,  and  in  the  course  of 
its  existence  it  has  indeed  "spoken  a  various  lan- 
guage." From  the  Capitol  Building  it  passed  to 
the  Yankton  Academy,  organized  by  Mr.  Ward  in 
the  '70's,  and  in  due  time  was  inherited  by  the 
Yankton  High  School,  where  it  continues  in  use 
to  the  present  day. 

Mr,  Ward,  in  a  sermon  preached  seven  years 
afterward,  recalled  with  deep  feeling  those  meet- 
ings of  the  pioneer  church  in  the  old  Capitol 
Building.  "A  few  of  us  can  remember  that  old 
room  as  it  used  to  look  seven  years  ago,  and  not 
one  but  has  some  interesting  part  of  his  experi- 
ence dating  back  to  that  place.  In  that  room  was 
held  the  funeral  service  of  the  first  member  of  our 
Sunday  School  who  was  taken  from  us  by 
death,  which  was  also  the  first  funeral  service  I 
attended  in  this  place.  Three  days  later  the  room 
was  used  for  the  funeral  of  an  aged  mother  of 
eighty-one  years,  the  first  of  our  church  to  enter 
the  church  above.  There,  too,  many  voices  for 
the  first  time  spoke  tremblingly  of  their  love  for 
Christ  and  gave  themselves  to  him  in  everlast- 
ing covenant.  There  your  pastor  was  ordained 
to  the  work  of  the  gospel  ministry,  and  installed 
as  leader  of  this  company  of  believers,  and  there 
for  the  first  time  he  broke  the  bread  and  poured 
the  cup  in  memory  of  our  Lord." 

During  that  winter  the  congregation  moved 
out  of  the  "statehouse"  and  into  other  temporary 
quarters  in  a  room  known  as  "Fuller's  Hall," 
where  they  continued  until  a  church  building 
was  erected  and  ready  for  occupancy,  in  January, 

77 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

1870.    The  building  of  that  house  of  worship  was 
a  great  achievement  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ward  and 
for  the  people  of  Yankton.     At    the   Christmas 
festival  of  the  Church  held  that  first  winter  in 
Fuller's  Hall  a  gift  was  received  from  Gen.  J.  S. 
B.  Todd,  of  Yankton,  of  two  lots  on  which  to 
build.       A  day  or  two  later  Mr.  Ward,  accom- 
panied by  Gen.  Todd  and  his  man,  Tim  Welby, 
drove  out  north  of  town  to  make  a  selection  of 
the  lots.     At  the  corner  of  Fifth  and  Walnut — 
what  seemed  then  quite  out  in  the  country — Mr. 
Ward  indicated  his  choice.     "Here  we  will  build 
our  church,"  he  said.     Mr.  W^elby,  who  recalls  the 
incident,  tells  how  Mr.  W^ard  then  alighted  from 
the  buggy,  and  standing  there  in  the  snow  upon 
the  chosen  spot,  bared  his  head  and  prayed  for 
the  blessing  of  God  upon  the  donor,  and  upon  that 
sacred  ground  upon  which  was  to  be  erected  the 
pioneer  Congregational  church  of  the  Dakotas. 
With  this  fine  start  of  the  gift  of  lots  Mr.  Ward 
and  his  people  at  once  began  to  plan  for  their 
building.     The  people  of  the  town    as    a   whole 
entered  into  the  project  with  a  will,  subscribing 
liberally  and  often  at  great    sacrifice,    felt    the 
more  in  such  pioneer  times  when  living  was  full 
of  privations  at  the  best.     The  women    held    a 
wonderful  bazaar  at  the  old  St.  Charles  Hotel, 
and  by  that  enterprise  and  other  efforts  raised 
some  three  thousand  dollars  for  the  cause.    East- 
ern friends  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ward  contributed   a 
considerable  sum. 

This  remarkable  success  of  building  a  good- 
sized  and  commodious  church  in  a  little  over  u 

78 


COMING   TO   DAKOTA 

year  from  the  time  Mr.  Ward  came  was  followed 
up  within  a  year  or  two  more  by  the  Church 
becoming  self-supporting,  no  longer  dependent 
upon  the  Home  Missionary  Society  for  financial 
aid,  and  along  with  that  becoming  increasingly 
a  supporter  of  Dakota  missions  of  its  own,  aiding 
in  the  establishment  of  new  churches  in  the  set- 
tlements farther  up  the  Missouri,  and  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Sioux,  the  Vermillion,  and  the  James 
rivers. 

The  vigorous  and  successful  initiative  of  Mr. 
Ward's  work,  and  the  early  growth  of  the  Church 
in  numbers  and  influence,  are  the  more  notewor- 
thy when  it  is  remembered  how  near  those  times 
were  to  the  virtual  beginnings  of  all  things  in 
Dakota.  The  story  is  told  of  how  the  postmaster 
at  Yankton  used  to  distribute  the  mail.  He  car- 
ried the  letters  around  in  the  top  of  his  hat,  and 
gave  them  out  to  persons  addressed  as  he  hap- 
pened to  meet  them  on  the  street.  The  fear  of 
Indians,  to  be  sure,  had  come  now  to  be  regarded 
as  a  mark  of  the  tenderfoot,  and  Mr.  Ward  says 
that  when  they  came  "the  cheerful  custom  was 
already  well  established  of  making  Indian  raids, 
scalpings,  and  other  like  trifles,  the  staple  of  con- 
versation for  the  beneflt  of  new  comers.  For  a 
long  time  we  were  like  children  listening  to  the 
toughest  ghost  stories  that  could  be  invented, 
and  we  expected  nothing  less  than  tomahawks 
and  bullets  month  after  month.  But  we  got  over 
it  soon  enough  to  laugh  at  a  man  just  in  from  the 
East  who  armed  himself  with  his  rifle  and  revol- 
ver for  a  walk  from  the  International  Hotel  to 

79 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

the  Post  Office."  Whether  Mrs.  Ward  actually 
got  over  it  so  soon  is  perhaps  open  to  question. 
She  confessed  in  after  years  that  she  lived  for  a 
long  time  in  an  agony  of  dread,  though  she  kept 
it  all  to  herself.  And  in  point  of  fact  the  grim 
particulars  of  horror  and  bloodshed  were  quite 
too  near  and  authentic  for  comfort.  The  Minne- 
sota massacres,  and  subsequent  bloody  outrages 
all  along  the  Dakota  settlements,  were  fresh  in 
the  memory  of  Yankton  people,  and  during  that 
reign  of  terror  the  town  had  been  huddled  in  for 
weeks  behind  a  stockade  fortification,  under 
guard  of  a  company  of  soldiers,  in  hourly  expec- 
tation of  attack.  Mrs.  Ward,  speaking  of  those 
early  years  of  their  residence  in  Yankton,  recalls 
the  "Indian  scares"  every  spring,  when  it  was 
reported  that  the  "hos-tiles"  were  on  the  war 
path  and  were  "coming  down  to  wipe  out  Yank- 
ton!" "Life  was  made  miserable  for  the  new-com- 
ers," she  writes,  "for  there  were  the  Indians  in 
evidence  at  every  turn.  They  went  about  peeking 
into  the  windows  of  people's  houses  and  walked 
in  without  knocking  any  hour  of  the  day.  Yank- 
ton was  full  of  Indians.  All  up  and  down  the 
main  street  of  the  town,  the  platforms  in  front  of 
the  stores  were  gay  with  the  bright  blankets  of 
the  squaws,  while  the  Indian  men  stood  about 
the  streets  in  silent  knots  and  groups.  The  plum 
brush  in  Lower  Yankton  was  full  of  their  tepees 
and  there  were  tepees  on  the  bluffs  where  Yank- 
ton College  now  stands.  In  those  days  Indian 
women  were  the  only  available  'help'  in  the  house- 
hold; and  it  was  only  Indian  women  that  could  be 

80 


COMING  TO   DAKOTA 

hired  for  the  purpose  if  one  wanted  one's  cord- 
wood  split;  and  it  was  really  magnificent  the  way 
they  could  swing-  the  ax.  Grace  and  power  were 
combined  in  the  stroke." 

It  was  several  years  before  the  railroad  crept 
up-river  from  Sioux  City  to  Yankton.  To  the  end 
of  her  days  Mrs.  Ward  declared  that  she  loved  to 
hear  the  sound  of  locomotives — even  to  sleep 
close  to  the  puffing  and  noise  of  trains  at  night — 
as  the  effect  of  the  long  years  of  lonely  silence  in 
the  early  times  at  Yankton. 

The  old  Sioux  City  stage,  running  two  or  three 
times  a  week,  was  a  slender  thread  of  communi- 
cation with  the  outside  world,  and  even  that  was 
liable  to  be  broken  off  in  wintertime  by  storms 
and  drifted  roads.  But  the  time  of  comparative 
freedom  was  the  open  season  of  the  river  traffic 
when  the  steamers  began  to  come.  "So  keen  a 
thrill  of  joy  as  used  to  awake  in  every  heart  at 
the  cry  which  every  spring  announced  the  arrival 
of  the  first  boat!  Almost  the  whole  town  would 
rush  to  the  Levee,  with  eyes  strained  for  the  first 
glimpse  of  those  two  black  smokestacks  down  the 
stream.  How  anxiously  we  watched  her  slow 
progress  'round  the  bend,  past  the  old  saw- 
mill, and  how  we  cheered  as  the  men  sprang 
ashore  with  the  lines!  What  a  volley  of  ques- 
tions and  answers!  What  a  rush  to  get  on  board! 
For  that  boat  was  no  mere  boat.  It  was  a  mes- 
senger from  another  world.  It  was  a  part  of  our 
old  eastern  home  wafted  to  us  on  the  wings  and 
streams  of  spring.  It  told  us  that  our  long  iso- 
lation from  the  outside  world  was  at  an  end,  and 

81 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

that  for  months  to  come  we  would  have  almost 
a  daily  visitation  from  the  life  which  we  had  left. 
To  name  those  old  boats  is  like  telling  the  names 
of  one's  old  family  friends:  the  'Deer  Lodge,'  for 
three  years  in  succession  the  first  boat  up  the 
river  (didn't  they  use  to  spend  a  month  or  so 
before  the  break-up,  speculating — betting,  did  I 
say? — as  to  which  would  be  the  first  boat  up?), 
the  'Ida  Rees,'  the  'Antelope'  (burned  at  last  just 
above  here),  the  'Josephine,' — I  might  name  a 
score,  but  will  only  give  one  more — the  'Hiram 
Wood.'  Honorable  name!  When  shippers  could 
get  freight  on  the  'Hiram  Wood,'  with  Billy 
Gould  for  a  pilot,  they  never  took  out  any  insur- 
ance. On  that  boat,  and  under  that  captain's 
guidance,  came  the  lumber  for  this  church,  and  it 
came  safely  and  on  time 

"The  boats  frequently  tied  up  at  the  landing 
for  the  night:  great  flaring  beacons  lighted  up  the 
river  banks  for  a  great  distance,  in  the  glare  of 
which  the  roustabouts  rolled  out  the  freight  upon 
the  dock;  and  then  there  was  the  sound  of  music, 
and  a  crowd  of  Yankton's  young  people  went  on 
board  for  a  dance."     .... 

"It  is  hard  in  these  reminiscences  to  get  away 
from  the  river,"  writes  Mr.  Ward.  "We  might 
linger  there  longer,  and  looking  across  to  the 
Nebraska  shore  recall  the  beautiful  prosj>ect 
which  always  suggested  the  hymn, 

'Sweet  fields  beyond  the  swelling:  floods 
Stand  dressed  in  living  green.' 

The  name  Green  Island  was  not  the  misnomer  it 

82 


COMING  TO   DAKOTA 

is  now.  There  was  a  beautiful  grove,  almost  a 
forest,  and  the  bottom  lands  were  not  then  swept 
with  destruction  as  we  see  them  to-day.  No 
wonder  that  some  of  the  old  residents  on  that  side 
were  never  able  to  get  over  their  grief,  to  say 
nothing  of  their  loss,  caused  by  the  flood  of  a  year 
ago." 

In  connection  with  this  subject  of  the  river,  it 
is  a  fact  only  too  well  known  that  Yankton,  as 
Mrs.  Ward  has  said,  "had  the  reputation  of  being 
one  of  the  worst  of  'river  towns,'  with  all  that 
that  name  implies  of  wildness  and  wickedness. 
No  doubt  there  was  need  enough  of  a  gospel  mis- 
sion at  Yankton.  It  certainly  harbored  many  a 
desperate  character;  murders  were  not  infre- 
quent, and  now  and  then  a  lynching  made  things 
lively. 

"On  the  other  hand,"  she  goes  on,  "society  was 
of  the  very  best  at  Yankton.  Of  course,  being 
the  capital  of  the  Territory,  it  was  the  residence 
of  the  refined  and  cultivated  families  of  the 
United  States  officials.  At  that  time  all  the 
ladies  could  be  gotten  together  for  a  single  tea 
party  ....  So  the  wives  and  mothers,  who 
were  not  entirely  wonted  to  the  newness  of  their 
surroundings,  nor  as  yet  entirely  free  from  occa- 
sional qualms  of  homesickness,  used  often  to  get 
together  for  delightful  and  comforting  little 
visits  'over  the  teacups,'  even  though  the  houses 
were  small.  We  recall  one  of  these  delightful  lit- 
tle 'luncheons,'  the  'governor's  lady,'  newly  ar- 
rived from  the  East,  being  present,  where  the  bed 
having  to  be  taken  down  to  accommodate  that 

83 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

hospitable  table,  viands  were  passed  in  and  out 
of  the  open  window,  a  part  of  the  guests  having 
to  find  ingress  and  egress  by  the  same  means.  If 
there  were  not  chairs  enough  to  'go  'round'  at 
sundry  meetings  of  the  ladies'  sewing  society,  the 
ladies  did  not  mind  sitting  about  on  the  floors. 
There  was  always  a  very  ready  and  cheerful  adap- 
tation to  circumstances.  One  may  date  from  that 
time  a  habit  of  meeting  together  in  the  utmost 
friendliness,  and  working  together  in  the  spirit  of 
mutual  love  and  respect  as  time  developed  a  need 
of  woman's  work  and  ministry  to  the  common 
weal." 


84 


CHAPTER  VI 
LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 


CHAPTER  VI 
LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

JOSEPH  WARD'S  pastorate  of  the  pioneer 
Congregational  Church  of  Dakota,  begun  in 
1868,  continued  for  fourteen  years,  when  he 
laid  down  the  work  to  take  up  active  duty  as 
president  of  Yankton  College.  This  part  of  his 
career,  which  will  be  the  subject  of  this  chapter 
and  the  one  following,  covers  the  larger  part  of 
the  territorial  period  of  Dakota  history,  extending 
practically  from  the  beginning  of  settlement  to 
the  beginning  of  the  struggle  for  statehood.  Dur- 
ing these  fourteen  years,  in  spite  of  blizzards  and 
drouths  and  frequent  devastation  by  grasshop- 
pers, immigration  flowed  rapidly  into  Dakota, 
reaching  its  high  tide  in  the  great  "boom"  of  the 
early  '80's.  The  population  of  the  Territory  in- 
creased from  the  14,000  of  1870  to  nearly  200,000 
in  1880,  and  Yankton,  the  capital,  grew  from  the 
400  of  1868  to  over  4,000  in  1882.  In  the  middle 
of  this  period  came  the  great  exciting  gold-rush 
for  the  Black  Hills,  precipitating  the  terrible 
last  struggle  of  the  Sioux  Indians  against  the 
white  invaders,  and  followed  by  their  final  settle- 
ment on  the  government  reservations.  During 
these  fourteen  years,  as  settlement  extended  west- 
ward and  northward  over  the  prairies,  there  were 
laid  the  missionary  foundations  of  the  future 
state,  and  the  work  of  education  was  carried  for- 

87 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ward  which  led  to  the  founding  of  the  first  col- 
lege and  other  institutions  of  higher  learning 
which  quickly  followed,  and  to  the  establishment 
of  a  splendid  public  school  system  when  the  new 
state  was  formed. 

In  following  the  work  of  Mr.  Ward  during 
these  fourteen  years  of  his  pastorate  we  are  to 
see  how  his  influence,  in  affairs  of  church  and 
school  and  state,  broadened  out  into  this  expand- 
ing life  of  the  whole  Commonwealth.  Dakota 
w^as  his  parish :  the  saying  became  more  and  more 
a  substantial  fact.  He  was  one  of  many  good 
builders,  men  who,  in  this  time  of  flux  and  specu- 
lation and  unrestraint,  were  working  to  lay  solid 
foundations  of  trade  and  industry,  of  law  and 
order,  of  education  and  religion — men  w^hose 
names  will  be  honored  in  the  annals  of  Dakota. 
Yet  of  all  those  Dakota  pioneers,  Joseph  Ward, 
the  Pilgrim  preacher,  educator,  and  patriot,  was 
the  truest  empire  builder.  More  than  any  other 
he  absorbed  the  spirit  of  the  growing  common- 
wealth, realizing  its  tendency  and  power  with  the 
vision  of  a  prophet.  Continuously  during  those 
formative  years  his  hand  was  shaping  things  at 
the  most  vital  points.  It  has  been  well  said  of 
him  that  whatever  future  line  of  historical  inves- 
tigation one  may  follow  up  in  Dakota  one  will 
find  at  the  foundation  of  things  the  hand  of 
Joseph  Ward. 


In  the  beginning,  and  through  all  the  years  of 
his  pastorate  of  the  Yankton  Church,   he  was 

88 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

above  all  things  faithful  to  his  mission  as  a  Chris- 
tian minister.  He  preached  the  gospel  as  he 
understood  it,  and  as  he  was  all  the  time  proving 
it  in  his  own  experience.  It  was  his  nature  to 
seek  to  convert  people  in  the  direct  evangelistic 
w^ay.  That  very  first  winter,  in  the  old  Capitol 
Building,  the  church  experienced  a  revival,  and 
others  followed  from  time  to  time.  He  knew  how 
to  preach  heaven  and  hell  with  due  effect,  but  it 
was  characteristic  of  him  to  place  his  emphasis 
and  base  his  conclusions  upon  the  experience  of 
this  life,  rather  than  upon  reports  and  specula- 
tions as  to  the  world  beyond  the  grave.  "We  do 
not  become  Christians  simply  to  get  to  heaven, 
which  to  many  means  only  to  escape  hell.  Both 
motives  are  good,  and  certainly  powerful.  But 
there  is  something  worse  than  to  be  in  hell,  and 
something  better  than  to  be  in  heaven.  To  have 
a  sinful  heart,  that  brings  one  to  the  state  and 
place  called  hell,  is  worse  than  to  be  in  hell.  To 
have  a  holy  heart,  that  finally  brings  one  to  the 
presence  of  Christ,  and  into  heaven,  is  better  than 
to  be  in  heaven."  In  line  with  this  practical  view 
of  heaven  and  hell  was  his  idea  of  what  it  meant 
to  be  "saved."  "Just  as  soon  as  we  are  sorry  for 
sin  and  want  to  get  away  from  it,  just  the  instant 
we  tell  God  we  are  tired  of  sin  and  wish  to  leave 
it,  God  at  once  converts  us,  i.  e.,  he  turns  us 
round.  Before,  we  were  walking  away  from 
God  and  toward  sin;  before,  we  let  all  our  life 
grow  away  from  Christ;  but  after  we  put  our- 
selves in  the  hands  of  God  by  repenting,  we  walk 
toward  God  and  away  from  sin,  and  our  life  be- 

89 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

gins  to  grow  toward  Christ.  This  beginning  of 
growth  is  regeneration,  but  continuing  in  it  is  sal- 
vation. Regeneration,  then,  is  a  single  act;  while 
salvation  is  a  lifelong  process." 

There  was  one  revival  in  1872,  the  second  win- 
ter after  they  moved  into  the  new  church,  of 
which  he  has  left  some  account  in  his  diary.  It 
is  evident  that  there  was  a  remarkable  absence 
of  excitement,  and  that  the  spirit  of  the  meetings 
was  one  of  thoughtfulness  and  solemnity.  "The 
interest  is  very  deep  and  quiet,"  he  writes.  "New 
faces  are  seen  every  evening."  ....  "The 
largest  meeting  yet,  and  very  solemn."  There 
was  never  any  taint  of  the  sensational  in  his 
evangelistic  preaching.  He  supplemented  the 
evening  services  by  personal  talks  during  the  day 
at  people's  homes  and  places  of  business — just  as 
he  had  done  among  his  fellow  students  at  Phillips 
Academy.  Especially  notable  in  his  diary  record 
of  these  meetings  is  the  number  of  men  who  were 
converted — many  of  them  well  known  and  promi- 
nent men  in  the  history  of  the  community  and  of 
the  state.  In  those  years  one  might  see,  instead 
of  the  wife  alone  joining  the  church,  the  husband 
and  wife  joining  together. 

The  influence  of  Mr.  Ward's  preaching  was 
strongly  supported  by  the  practice  of  his  daily 
life.  Of  him  we  may  say  simply,  as  Chaucer  said 
of  his  "good  man  of  religion,"  that 

"Christes  lore  and  his  apostles   twelve 

He  taufrbte.  but  first  he  folwerl   it  himselve." 

Instances    of    unobtrusive    deeds    of    neighborly 

90 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

kindness  and  charity  inevitably  come  to  mind 
when  people  speak  in  reminiscence  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Ward.  A  reputed  infidel  is  remembered  to 
have  said:  "I  take  no  stock  in  what  is  called  Chris- 
tianity, but  if  Mr.  Ward  is  a  Christian  I  believe 
in  that  kind,  for  while  my  family  was  sick  of  a 
contagious  disease,  no  one  came  near  us  but  a 
person  who  brought  each  day's  supply  of  food  to 
our  back  gate  every  night  after  dark,  and  it  was 
sometime  after  we  were  released  from  quarantine 
before  we  knew  our  benefactor  to  have  been  Mr. 
Ward."  There  was  another  man,  a  harness 
maker,  who  was  led  to  conversion  by  observing  in 
Mr.  Ward  a  verv'  simple  act  of  charity.  He  was 
a  drinking  man  and  had  led  a  hard  life.  Mr.  Ward 
had  called  on  him  at  his  shop  that  winter  while 
his  revival  meetings  were  going  on  and  endeav- 
ored to  interest  him  in  the  subject  of  religion, 
but  had  met  with  only  scofiing  and  repulse.  A 
few  days  afterward,  just  before  Christmas,  this 
man  happened  to  pass  by  a  grocery  store  late  in 
the  evening  and  saw  Mr.  W^ard  come  out  of  the 
door  with  a  sack  of  flour  on  his  back.  It  was 
snowing  and  a  cold  night.  The  minister  did  not 
turn  toward  home.  Where  was  he  going  with  a 
sack  of  flour  on  his  own  back,  in  such  weather, 
and  at  that  late  hour?  The  harness  maker's  curi- 
osity was  aroused;  he  went  along  too,  quietly 
"shadowing  his  man"  through  the  snow  down  a 
side  street,  until  he  saw  that  sack  of  flour  depos- 
ited on  the  doorstep  of  a  poor  widow  of  the  town. 
The  minister  gave  a  loud  rap  at  the  door — then 
skipped  away,  boy-like,  no  doubt  chuckling  hap- 

91 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

pily  over  his  Christmas  secret.  But  here  was  a 
case  where  God,  who  seeth  in  secret,  rewarded 
him  openly — for  that  man  who  spied  the  deed 
pondered  it  in  his  mind,  and  concluded  that  Mr. 
Ward's  religion  was  a  good  thing  after  all:  for 
he  came  to  the  meetings,  was  promptly  converted, 
joined  the  church  and  eventually  became  a  dea- 
con of  the  same,  developed  into  a  capable  and 
influential  citizen,  in  due  time  became  a  trustee 
and  liberal  supporter  of  the  College,  and  stood 
as  a  power  for  righteousness  in  the  community 
all  the  rest  of  his  days. 

Stories  like  these  of  the  way  he  went  about 
doing  good  might  be  related  without  number. 
They  belong  to  the  folklore  of  Yankton. 

The  extending  of  Mr.  Ward's  missionary  labors 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  Yankton  pastorate  began 
the  very  first  year.  There  was  soon  a  little 
church  organized  at  Bon  Homme,  twenty  miles 
up  the  river,  where  Mr.  Ward  served  for  a  time 
— until  Father  Nichols  was  called  to  the  place — 
making  the  trip  by  team  once  in  three  or  four 
weeks.  He  preached  also  across  the  river  on  the 
Nebraska  side  at  a  place  called  Elm  Grove,  and 
soon  at  Green  Island,  that  beautiful  village  di- 
rectly across  the  river  from  Yankton,  and  within 
hailing  distance  from  the  foot  of  Capitol  Street, 
of  which  every  vestige  was  swept  away  in  the 
flood  of  1881.  There  he  conducted  services  Sun- 
day afternoons,  walking  over  on  the  ice  in  winter 
and  rowing  across  in  a  skiff  when  the  river  was 
open,  which  work  he  continued  until  Father  Sec- 
combe  came  to  take  charge  of  the  Green  Island 

92 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

Church.  Under  Mr.  Ward's  leadership  there  was 
soon  formed  a  Congregational  Association  of 
Dakota,  embracing  these  and  other  new  churches 
that  quickly  sprang  up  at  Canton,  Sioux  Falls 
and  Dell  Rapids  in  the  Big  Sioux  Valley,  at  Elk 
Point,  Vermillion  and  Springfield  on  the  Mis- 
souri, and  also  the  Indian  Mission  at  Santee, 
Nebraska,  just  across  from  Springfield,  then 
recently  started  by  the  Rev.  A.  L.  Riggs,  of  the 
historic  Riggs  family  of  Indian  missionaries. 
Many  of  these  early  churches  were  organized  and 
established  under  Mr.  Ward's  care,  and  in  some 
cases  they  received  financial  aid  from  the  Yank- 
ton Church.  The  time  soon  came,  however,  with 
the  swift  extension  of  settlement,  when  there  was 
need  of  the  service  of  a  general  missionary  to 
promote  the  cause  of  Congregational  missions  in 
the  Territory.  Through  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Ward  the  man  called  to  this  position  was  the  Rev. 
Stewart  Sheldon,  his  sister's  husband,  at  whose 
home  he  had  lived  while  attending  Brown  Uni- 
versity. Through  Mr.  Sheldon  he  continued  to  be 
in  close  touch  with  the  rapidly-extending  missions 
of  the  Territory,  as  new  churches  were  planted 
all  along  the  Missouri,  and  up  the  valleys  of  the 
Big  Sioux,  the  Vermillion  and  the  James,  through 
the  decade  of  the  '70's.  Joseph  Ward  has  been 
rightly  called  the  father  of  Congregationalism  in 
Dakota.  He  was  not  only  the  pioneer  minister 
and  organizer  of  the  earliest  churches,  but  his 
hand  and  influence  were  upon  all  the  work  of 
Dakota  missions  throughout  the  great  period  of 
immigration,  and  on  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

93 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

Mr.  Ward,  through  his  early  friendship  with 
the  Rev.  A.  L.  Riggs,  soon  became  interested  in 
Indian  missions.  In  the  summer  of  1872  he  made 
an  overland  trip  with  Mr.  Riggs  up  the  valley  of 
the  Big  Sioux  to  Sisseton  Agency  in  the  north- 
eastern corner  of  South  Dakota  to  attend  a  con- 
ference of  Indian  churches  at  that  place.  At  that 
early  time  the  Big  Sioux  Valley  above  the  set- 
tlements at  Sioux  Falls  and  Dell  Rapids  was  only 
beginning  to  be  occupied  by  white  men.  At  Flan- 
dreau,  where  a  body  of  Santee  Indians  had 
recently  taken  up  their  abode,  they  met  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Williamson,  of  that  other  historic  family  of 
Indian  missionaries,  who  was  conducting  a  meet- 
ing in  the  new  Indian  church  there.  Resuming 
their  journey  northward  they  soon  passed  the  last 
house  on  the  Big  Sioux  River  and  from  there 
camped  only  on  the  open  prairie,  subsisting  in 
part  on  antelope  and  other  game  shot  along  the 
way.  It  was  more  than  a  week's  journey,  mostly 
through  wild,  untravelled  country,  from  Yank- 
ton to  the  place  of  their  destination. 

The  experiences  of  that  journey  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  the  mind  of  Mr.  Ward,  whose 
ideas  of  Indians  hitherto  had  been  colored  by  the 
tales  and  terrors  of  early  days  in  Yankton.  An 
address  that  Mr.  Ward  made  before  his  Yankton 
church  upon  his  return  from  that  expedition, 
was  recalled  long  afterward  by  Dr.  Joseph  E. 
Roy,  at  that  time  field  secretary  of  the  American 
Home  Missionary  Society.  "Joseph  Ward,"  he 
writes,  "early  became  the  champion  of  the  In- 
dian's  disenthrallment.     I    was    present    in    his 

94 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

church  eighteen  years  ago,  when,  having  just 
returned  from  the  annual  conference  of  the 
Dakota  Christian  Indians,  where  he  met  the 
Riggses  and  the  Williamses,  fathers  and  sons,  he 
made  report  to  his  people  of  that  meeting,  con- 
fessing that  heretofore  he  had  almost  given  in  to 
that  maxim,  'the  only  good  Indian  is  a  dead 
Indian,'  but  declaring  now  his  faith  in  the  In- 
dian's reclamation  and  his  purpose  to  use  his 
utmost  endeavor  in  that  direction.  Nobody 
knows  as  well  as  Alfred  and  Thomas  Riggs  and 
John  Williamson  and  their  associates  how 
grandly  he  kept  that  covenant,  always  ready  by 
counsel  and  sympathy  and  service  to  aid  them 
and  the  Indian  Christians  in  their  undertakings. 
Largely  by  his  early  influence  those  Dakota 
Indian  ministers  and  churches  were  brought  in 
to  be  constituent  parts  of  the  Dakota  General 
Association.  For  this  service  at  the  front,  for 
his  influence  in  forming  public  sentiment  and  for 
his  help  in  shaping  governmental  policy,  the 
American  Missionary  Association  owes  much  to 
this  friend  at  court." 

At  the  same  time  with  this  widening  connection 
with  missions  in  the  territory,  Mr.  Ward  was 
already  engaging  in  the  work  of  education.  He 
did  not  wait  for  settlement  to  spread  out  over 
the  prairies  before  beginning  to  fulfill  that  com- 
mission of  his  to  "see  to  it  that  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian education  be  vigorously  carried  forward  in 
the  great  Northwest."  He  found  opportunity  to 
begin  a  needed  work  of  education  right  then  and 
there  at  Yankton.     In  those    wild    new    times, 

95 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

when  the  population  was  so  largely  of  the  shift- 
ing and  adventurous  class,  it  was  difficult  to  start 
and  maintain  public  schools.  Yankton  had  not 
yet  been  made  a  separate  school  district,  and 
there  was  no  adequate  provision  for  securing 
school  funds  by  taxation.  The  public  school* 
building  of  those  early  days,  known  as  the 
"Brown  School  House,"  had  been  built  in  1860 
by  the  private  enterprise  of  a  noble  band  of 
Yankton  women,  who  held  a  series  of  "festivals" 
in  the  Capitol  Building  during  the  w  inter  of  1865-6 
to  raise  the  money.  It  used  to  be  argued  in  those 
days  that  four  or  five  months  of  school  in  the 
year  was  all  the  town  could  afford,  and  six 
months  was  about  the  most  favorable  compro- 
mise which  the  friends  of  education  could  gain. 
No  attempt  was  made  at  teaching  anything  above 
the  lower  grades.  It  is  remembered  how,  in  the 
fall  of  '67,  a  year  before  Mr.  Ward  came,  when 
a  school  tax  had  been  voted  and  the  treasurer 
went  out  to  collect  it,  about  half  of  the  people 
declined  to  pay — with  the  result  that  those  who 
did  pay  were  presently  called  upon  to  pay  again. 
Such  was  the  meagre  and  precarious  condition  of 
education  in  Yankton  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Ward's 
coming.  Already  the  slender  opportunities  of 
the  old  "Brown  School  House"  were  being  sup- 
plemented by  private  enterprise  in  education,  and 
it  w^as  in  this  field  of  needed  effort  that  Mr.  Ward, 
the  second  fall  after  his  arrival  in  Yankton, 
began  teaching  a  private  school. 

The  school  was  started  in  the  rear  room  of 
Judge  Bartlett's  office  at  the  corner  of  Second 

96 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

and  Cedar  streets,  with  an  attendance  of  seven- 
teen pupils.  The  school  soon  outgrew  those 
quarters  and  removed  to  the  "Fuller  Block,"  on 
the  west  side  of  Cedar  Street  between  Second  and 
the  Levee.  Among  the  pupils  of  Mr.  Ward's  pri- 
vate school  were  the  children  of  a  number  of  the 
well-known  pioneers  and  prominent  men  of 
Dakota,  such  as  Governor  Newton  Edmunds,  Mr. 
W.  B.  Valentine,  General  W.  H.  H.  Beadle,  the 
Hon.  James  S.  Foster,  Gen.  J.  S.  B.  Todd,  the  Hon. 
H.  H.  Smith,  Governor  Andrew  J.  Faulk,  General 
William  Tripp,  and  Major  F.  J.  DeWitt.  In  fact, 
Mr.  Ward  before  long  became  the  recognized 
leader  in  matters  of  education,  and  gathered 
about  himself  the  support  of  the  best  men  of  the 
community,  the  men  who  were  interested  in 
schools  and  who  had  an  eye  to  the  future  of  the 
town  and  the  territory.  It  was  in  the  strength  of 
such  leadership  and  with  the  backing  of  such  men 
that  Mr.  Ward,  in  1872,  organized  that  famous  in- 
stitution of  the  early  days,  the  Yankton  Acad- 
emy. The  Board  of  Trustees  consisted  of  Joseph 
Ward,  president,  James  S.  Foster,  Josiah  R.  San- 
born, Franklin  J.  DeWitt,  J.  A.  Potter,  W.  H.  H. 
Beadle,  Newton  Edmunds,  and  E.  P.  Wilcox.  A 
permanent  building  was  erected  on  the  site  of 
the  present  high  school,  and  on  New  Year's  even- 
ing, 1873,  was  dedicated  with  impressive  cere- 
mony. Nathan  Ford,  now  of  Rockford,  Illinois, 
was  the  first  principal  of  the  Academy,  and 
its  enrollment  that  first  year  was  103. 

The  Yankton  Academy  was  the  outgrowth  of 
Mr.  Ward's  earlier  private  school,  and  in  turn  the 

97 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

forerunner  of  Yankton  College.  In  a  sense  it  was 
the  beginning  of  higher  education  in  Dakota.  It 
was  by  far  the  most  advanced  school  in  the  Ter- 
ritory, and  continued  for  several  years  to  main- 
tain its  pre-eminence  in  education,  until  the  time 
came  when  Mr,  Ward  began  to  agitate  the  ques- 
tion of  a  college.  Then  it  was  that  the  Yankton 
Academy  was  given  over  to  public  control  and 
transformed  into  the  Yankton  High  School,  th»» 
first  public  high  school  in  Dakota.  The  work  and 
influence  of  Mr.  Ward  and  his  associates  had 
developed  the  public  sentiment  which  made  that 
step  possible.  It  was  Mr.  Ward  who  framed  the 
law  which  was  passed  by  the  legislature  estab- 
lishing a  satisfactory  system  of  public  schools, 
including  high  schools,  for  the  Territory,  on  the 
basis  of  which  the  Yankton  High  School  was 
organized.  He  became  president,  and  his  fellow 
trustees  of  the  Academy  members  with  him,  of 
the  board  of  public  education;  and  Mr.  BristoU, 
then  principal  of  the  Academy,  was  made  princi- 
pal of  the  High  School.  The  Yankton  High 
School,  as  thus  started,  continued  the  high  qual- 
ity of  work  already  established  by  the  Academy, 
and  set  the  mark  for  other  schools  w^hich  were 
organized  in  the  territory  as  time  went  on. 

The  whole  question  of  public  education  in  the 
great  Territory,  and  in  the  state  to  be  born,  was 
of  deep  concern  to  Mr.  Ward  from  the  earliest 
years.  He  was  closely  associated  with  early  ter- 
ritorial superintendents  of  public  instruction, 
notably  with  the  Hon.  James  S.  Foster  and  Gen. 
W.  H.  H.  Beadle.  With  Mr.  Foster  as  early  as  1872 

98 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

he  used  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  the  public  school  lands  of  the  future  state; 
and  with  General  Beadle  he  was  in  closest  con- 
nection later  on  in  that  cause  of  saving  the  school 
lands,  when  it  was  taken  up  and  made  a  leading 
issue  in  the  struggle  for  statehood.  It  will  be 
seen  also  how  Mr.  Ward,  in  the  constitutional 
conventions  of  that  later  time,  had  a  leading 
influence  in  forming  the  educational  law  of  the 
future  state. 

Taking  into  consideration  all  the  facts  of  Mr. 
Ward's  work  in  the  cause  of  education — his  early 
private  teaching,  developing  into  the  Yankton 
Academy,  his  leadership  in  organizing  the  first 
high  school,  his  founding  of  the  first  college,  his 
important  connection  with  early  school  legisla- 
tion and  with  the  school  land  cause  as  part  of 
the  statehood  movement,  his  work  in  establishing 
the  educational  law  of  the  state  constitution — 
there  would  seem  to  be  ample  warrant  for  the 
title,  which  long  ago  was  applied  to  Mr.  Ward, 
of  "founder  of  the  educational  system  of  South 
Dakota." 

Dr.  Charles  M.  Sheldon,  who  as  a  boy  was 
living  with  his  parents  on  the  farm  near  Yankton 
during  these  years,  relates  an  incident  which 
finely  illustrates  Mr.  Ward's  character,  and  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Ward  at  this  time  on  his  own  life. 

"It  was  my  privilege  while  attending  school  in^ 
Yankton  to  be  constantly  in  my  uncle's  home  and 
perhaps  I  knew  him  in  some  ways  better  than 
any  one  member  of  our  own  family.  I  was  a 
pupil  in  the  school  which  lie  taught  the  first  win- 

99 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ter  he  opened  the  little  building  in  Yankton  be- 
fore the  Academy  was  organized.  I  attended  this 
school  all  that  winter  and  could  almost  write  a 
book  of  instances  concerning  little  things  which 
go  to  make  up  the  sum  total  of  a  great  man's  life. 
These  little  things  were  all  clear  indications  of  a 
very  remarkable  character — in  many  respects  the 
most  remarkable  I  have  ever  known.  I  think  it 
may  safely  be  said  that  Joseph  Ward  was  the  gen- 
tlest strong  man  I  ever  knew.  My  earliest  recol- 
lection of  the  real  nobility  of  his  character 
centered  about  a  Christmas  which  was  in  the  year 
he  was  teaching  the  little  school  to  which  I  have 
referred.  In  addition  to  the  work  of  his  growing 
church  and  parish  he  carried  together  with  the 
school  work  practically  all  the  burden  of  initiat- 
ing any  kind  of  work  in  his  own  church  by  doing 
things  himself.  The  whole  of  that  Christmas 
week  he  was  busy  after  the  school-teaching  hour, 
arranging  for  a  Christmas  gathering  at  a  time 
when  such  gatherings  were  more  common  than 
they  are  now  in  the  interest  of  the  children  of  the 
Sunday  School.  I  remember  the  construction  of 
a  house  supposed  to  belong  to  Santa  Claus  occu- 
pied him  during  an  entire  week.  He  built  this 
house  with  his  own  hands,  helped  occasionally  by 
some  young  man  who  would  come  in  from  the 
church  or  Sunday  School  and  assist.  I  think  T 
was  present  in  the  church  more  or  less  with  my 
uncle  every  afternoon  of  that  week.  There  was 
no  one  in  the  world  I  respected  more  or  loved 
more,  but  I  can  recall  the  fact  that  I  was  oftener 
perhaps  in  his  way  than  helping  him  in  the  real 

100 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

work  he  was  doing.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
week,  he  had  been  so  overwhelmed  with  numer- 
ous cares  in  connection  with  the  school  and  his 
own  home  that  he  was  exceedingly  weary  physi- 
cally, and  towards  the  close  of  the  day  as  he  was 
working  on  this  Christmas  house,  I  added  to  his 
troubles  by  getting  in  his  way  more  than  usual: 
and  he  spoke  sharply  to  me  and  told  me  to  go 
home.  As  I  remember  the  incident  now  it  would 
have  served  me  right  if  he  had  taken  me  over  his 
knee  and  given  me  a  good  sound  whipping  which 
I  deserved;  but  the  incident  was  so  absolutely 
unique  and  the  rebuke  the  first  one  I  had  ever 
heard  from  his  gentle  speech  that  I  went  out  of 
the  church  and  went  home  almost  heartbroken. 
I  remember  clearly  the  incident  and  shall  never 
forget  it.  I  was  so  affected  by  what  he  had  said 
that  I  refused  to  eat  any  supper  and  went  up  to 
my  room  and  went  to  bed.  My  mother  thought  I 
was  not  well,  as  I  did  not  tell  her  anything  about 
the  incident.  I  lay  awake  thinking  about  the 
matter  and  about  eight  o'clock  heard  the  door 
downstairs  open  and  my  uncle  come  in.  At  that 
time  he  was  living  some  five  or  six  blocks  from 
our  house  in  Yankton.  I  heard  him  inquire  of 
my  mother  where  I  was  and  she  told  him  that  I 
had  gone  upstairs  to  bed.  He  wanted  to  know 
if  I  was  asleep,  and  my  mother  said  she  did  not 
know.  I  heard  him  coming  up  the  stairs  but  had 
not  the  least  intimation  concerning  his  visit.  I 
simply  wondered  how  it  had  happened  that  he  had 
come  after  that  long  hard  day's  work  to  see  me. 
When  he  came  into  the  room,  he  stood  at  the  head 

101 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

of  the  bed  while  I  got  up  into  a  sitting  posture 
and  looked  at  him.  I  shall  never  forget  the  way 
he  looked  and  the  words  he  spoke.  He  said,  look- 
ing straight  at  me  and  using  the  name  that  he 
commonly  used: 

"  'Charlie,  I  spoke  harshly  to  you  this  afternoon, 
and  I  have  come  to  ask  your  pardon.  I  cannot 
sleep  until  I  have  it.' 

"I  was  so  dumfounded  that,  as  I  remember  the 
incident,  I  did  not  even  say  a  single  word.  He 
stood  there  a  moment  as  if  he  understood  com- 
pletely my  feeling  in  the  matter  and  not  expect- 
ing any  reply,  turned  and  went  out  of  the  room. 

"As  the  years  have  gone  b^^,  I  have  never  been 
able  to  escape  the  tremendous  impression  which 
that  little  incident  left  with  me.  Here  was  a 
great  strong  man,  the  pastor  of  the  church,  my 
pastor,  and  my  uncle,  who  had  come  out  on  a 
stormy  night  after  an  exceedingly  wearisome 
day's  work  to  ask  the  pardon  of  me,  a  small  boy, 
because  he  could  not  rest  with  the  real  burden 
which  lay  upon  his  heart  that  he  had  actually 
committed  a  w^ong  thing  in  speaking  hastily.  I 
have  never  been  able  myself,  looking  at  it  from 
any  angle,  to  see  how  he  possibly  committed  any 
wrong  whatever  in  anything  he  said  to  me,  but 
that  is  not  the  point.  He  thought  he  had  and 
that  was  enough  for  him.  I  do  not  believe  T 
know  any  other  man  living  in  my  acquaintance 
who  would  have  done  what  he  did.  I  was  a  little 
over  nine  years  old  at  the  time,  but  the  impres- 
sion deepens  with  me  the  older  I  grow  that  the 
finest  manhood  is  expressed  in  the  thought  that 

103 


LAYING  FOUNI>ATIONS 

the  greatest  saints  have  the  largest  possible  defin- 
ition of  the  words,  wrong  and  right,  responsi- 
bility, sin,  forgiveness,  and  the  great  words  which 
make  up  the  sum  total  of  human  destiny.  As 
long  as  such  souls  exist  we  need  not  fear  for  the 
sf.lvation  of  the  world." 

In  November,  the  third  year  after  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Ward  came  to  Yankton,  their  first  child,  a  sou 
named  Wood,  was  born;  and  about  two  years 
after  that  a  daughter,  Ethel.  In  the  meanwhile, 
after  that  first  winter  in  the  home  of  Mr.  Fuller, 
they  had  begun  housekeeping  in  a  little  frame 
house  on  Third  Street,  now  the  main  business 
street  of  the  town,  afterward  moving  to  a  house 
on  Picotte  Street,  where  both  of  these  children 
were  born.  And  now,  in  the  fall  of  1873,  their 
own  beautiful  home  on  Mulberry  Street  was  ap- 
proaching completion.  But  the  happy  anticipa- 
tion of  the  new  home  was  overshadowed  about  a 
month  before  they  moved  into  it  by  the  death  of 
Wood,  their  firstborn. 

They  buried  the  body  on  the  Stewart  Sheldon 
farm  northwest  of  the  town,  and  later  on,  when 
the  farm  was  sold,  Mr.  Ward  with  his  own  hands 
removed  the  remains  to  the  Yankton  cemetery. 
The  sorrow  of  the  parents  over  the  loss  of  this 
firstborn  son  was  unusually  deep  and  lasting.  Of 
Mr.  Ward  himself  it  was  observed  by  members  of 
the  family  and  those  intimate  with  him  that  "he 
was  never  quite  the  same  after  that."  Joseph 
Ward  possessed  the  mind  of  a  mystic  and  a  poet. 
The  sense  that  heaven  lies  about  us  in  our 
infancy  was  with  him  a  deep  element  of  religious 

103 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

feeling.  He  thought  of  children  as  divine  spirits 
newly  come  from  God.  But  in  this  experience 
of  Wood's  death,  following  as  it  did  a  gradual 
and  painful  decline,  the  sense  of  divinity  came 
with  other  associations  than  those  of  brightness 
and  joy.  "In  his  sickness,"  Mr.  Ward  says,  "I 
learned  more  than  I  ever  knew  before  of  the 
divine  mystery  of  suffering  and  patience.  .  .  . 
As  I  watched  him  fading  away  and  saw  his 
earthly  life  go  out  it  seemed  as  if  the  very  divin- 
ity of  our  Lord  entered  into  him,  and  so  Christ 
was  incarnated  once  more.  ...  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  he  was  so  much  more  noble 
than  other  children.  He  was  no  more  than  any 
son  is  to  his  father,  but  he  was  far  in  advance  of 
me." 

In  similar  vein  of  mystic  faith  may  be  quoted 
the  following  passage  from  a  sermon  of  about 
this  time  on  the  text,  "Children  are  an  heritage 
of  the  Lord,"  where  the  thought  expressed  is  a 
kindred  poetic  thought  of  motherhood.  "Every 
mother  who  will  receive  it  may  from  the  very 
first  hear  the  voice,  not  of  an  angel,  but  of  Christ 
himself,  bringing  her  as  sweet  an  annunciation 
as  Gabriel  brought  to  Mary.  The  Holy  Ghost 
may  come  upon  her,  and  the  power  of  the  Highest 
may  overshadow  her,  because  her  child  as  was 
Mary's  may  be  called  the  'Son  of  God.' " 

In  November,  1873,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ward  moved 
into  their  permanent  home.  The  building  of  that 
beautiful  house  was  a  wonderful  event  in  Yank- 
ton. It  was  the  gift  of  Mrs.  Ward's  father,  who 
believed  that  a  refined  and  dignified  mode  of  liv- 

104 


LAYING  FOUNDATIONS 

ing,  even  on  the  frontier,  was  proper  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  Christian  minister,  and  that  the  main- 
taining of  such  a  home  and  its  hospitality  would 
exert  a  beneficent  influence  upon  the  community. 
It  was  a  brick  house,  ample  in  dimensions  and 
dignified  in  architecture,  with  interior  finished  in 
modest  elegance  and  provided  with  modern  con- 
veniencies.  No  house  since  built  in  Yankton  has 
equalled  it  in  character;  it  was  in  fact  such  a 
home  as  would  have  graced  one  of  those  fine  elm- 
shaded  streets  in  an  old  New  England  town.  In 
the  Y''ankton  of  that  day  it  looked  lonely  and 
strange  enough,  off  on  the  prairie  as  it  was;  for 
Mulberry  Street  was  then  far  "out  of  town,"  and 
there  were  no  other  houses  near  nor  trees  to  ob- 
struct the  view  in  any  direction.  In  locating  the 
house  where  they  did,  just  as  in  locating  the 
church  out  on  the  prairie  at  Fifth  Street,  fully 
four  blocks  from  the  steamboat  landing  (a  pro- 
ceeding which  was  strongly  condemned  by  many 
people),  they  showed  their  characteristic  faith  in 
the  future  of  the  town. 

There  are  those  living  in  Yankton  to-day  who 
remember  with  enthusiasm  the  wonderful  "house- 
warming"  that  was  held  when  the  family  moved 
into  the  new  home,  and  the  great  dinner  that  was 
served,  and  how  every  workman  who  had  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  building  of  the  house  was 
present — and  conspicuously  the  hod-carrier  and 
his  little  girl. 

The  Ward  home  belongs  to  Dakota  history.  Its 
hospitality  is  a  fixed  tradition  in  Yankton.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  most  of  the  well-known  charac- 

105 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ters  of  Dakota  in  territorial  days  have  at  one 
time  or  another  been  entertained  there,  as  well  as 
most  of  the  distinguished  visitors  from  the  East 
who  came  to  Yankton  from  time  to  time.  Their 
door  was  open  to  all  who  came,  rich  and  poor 
alike.  Neighbors  tell  how  the  old  Sioux  City 
stage  was  so  accustomed  to  landing  a  guest  or 
two  at  the  Ward  home  that  the  horses,  when  the 
driver  would  be  drowsing,  would  stop  at  that  gate 
anyway  from  force  of  habit.  Most  frequent  of 
guests  were  ministers  and  missionaries,  newly 
come  from  the  East  and  bound  for  the  up-river 
country,  or  travelling  to  and  fro  on  their  work. 
All  such  pilgrims  found  here  the  "Palace  Beauti- 
ful," where  they  were  lodged  and  feasted  in  Chris- 
tian love  and  fellowship,  and  sent  along  their  way 
with  encouragement  and  Godspeed. 

Four  other  children  were  born  to  Joseph  and 
Sarah  Ward,  one  of  whom,  Paul  Jabez,  1878,  died 
at  birth.  Of  the  living  children,  Ethel  Tufts 
Ward,  the  eldest,  is  the  wife  of  Edward  D.  Gray, 
and  resides  with  her  family  in  the  old  Ward  home 
at  Yankton.  Donald  Butler  Ward  holds  a 
responsible  position  as  secretary  of  a  large  lia- 
bility insurance  company  with  headquarters  in 
Boston,  and  resides  in  that  city.  Freeman  Ward 
is  an  associate  professor  of  geology  in  Yale  Uni- 
versity. Sheldon  Ward  is  engaged  in  the  ranch 
and  cattle  business  in  Perkins  County,  South  Da- 
kota. Margaret  Ward,  the  youngest  of  the  chil- 
dren, is  at  present  studying  for  the  profession  of 
trained  nurse,  in  Newton  Hospital,  Newton,  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

106 


CHAPTER  VII 
IN  YANKTON  FROM   1873  TO  1881 


CHAPTER  VII 
IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

MR.  WARD'S  work  was  all  along  so  vi- 
tally related  to  the  development  of  Yank- 
ton and  of  Dakota  that  the  main 
events  in  the  history  of  town  and  Ter- 
ritory must  be  continually  kept  in  mind. 
Early  in  the  year  1873  the  long-awaited  Da- 
kota Southern  Railroad  was  completed  into 
Yankton  from  Sioux  City,  the  first  railroad  to 
penetrate  the  borders  of  Dakota  Territory.  To 
Yankton  in  particular  that  event  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  of  growth.  The  capital 
city  had  already  made  rapid  gain  in  population, 
and  was  the  centre  of  a  large  trade  with  settle- 
ments along  the  river  and  in  the  interior,  but  by 
the  coming  of  the  railroad  the  place  became  in  a 
new  and  larger  sense  the  gateway  city  of  Dakota. 
From  now  on  the  railroad  traffic  for  the  up-river 
settlements,  Indian  agencies  and  military  posts 
no  longer  terminated  at  Sioux  City  but  at  Yank- 
ton, and  Yankton  instead  of  Sioux  City  became 
the  initial  depot  for  the  steamboat  lines  engaged 
in  up-river  transportation.  Steamers  no  longer 
merely  touched  at  Yankton  in  passing,  but  started 
there,  loading  at  the  Yankton  levee  their  cargoes 
of  private  and  government  freight  for  a  thousand 
miles  of  up-river  country — hundreds  of  tons  in  a 

109 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

single  week — and  on  their  return  unloading  there 
also  their  shipments  of  ore  and  bullion  from  the 
Montana  mines,  and  buffalo  hides  from  the  hunt- 
ing ranges  of  the  Upper  Missouri.  One  of  the 
early  large  impressions  at  Yankton  of  the  new 
order  of  things  was  the  arrival  by  rail  in  April, 
that  year,  of  Gen.  George  A.  Custer  and  his 
Seventh  Cavalry  Regiment,  enroute  for  service  at 
a  military  post  on  the  upper  Missouri  on  the  line 
of  the  opening  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad. 
The  regiment  encamped  on  the  flat  just  northeast 
of  town,  were  caught  there  in  a  terrible  spring 
blizzard  which  raged  for  thirty-six  hours,  and 
remained  in  Yankton  for  three  weeks  before 
embarking  for  their  up-river  destination. 

The  new  impulse  at  Y'ankton  was  further 
heightened  when  the  discovery  of  gold  in  the 
Black  Hills  was  proclaimed  in  1874.  The  citizens 
of  Y^ankton  immediately  saw  their  opportunity  to 
establish  their  city  as  the  gateway  and  outfitting 
depot  for  the  grand  rush  to  the  Hills  which  was 
sure  to  come.  On  the  very  evening  after  the  gold 
report  was  received  (August  13)  the  citizens 
"assembled  a  great  mass  meeting  and  began  an 
elaborate  propaganda  to  advertise  the  Dakota 
gold-fields,  and  Yankton  as  the  gateway,  to  the 
world.  Flaming  posters  were  printed  setting 
forth  the  advantages  of  the  route  by  which  Yank- 
ton could  'be  reached  in  parlor  cars,  thence  on 
palatial  steamers  over  the  Missouri  River  to  Fort 
Pierre,  and  thence  a  three  days'  drive  in  sumptu- 
ous stage  coaches  directly  into  the  heart  of  the 
diggings.'     This  Y^ankton  movement  was  far  in 

110 


IN  YANKTON   FROM  1873  TO  1881 

advance  of  any  other  and  attracted  the  attention 
of  all  the  gold-fevered  world." 

The  following  spring  Sioux  City  was  in  lively 
competition  with  Yankton,  endeavoring  to  estab- 
lish an  overland  route  to  the  Hills  by  a  south-of- 
the-river  detour  of  their  rival  city,  through 
Nebraska,  which  the  Yankton  promoters  loudly 
ridiculed  as  the  "sand-hill  route"  of  monstrous 
toil  and  trouble  as  compared  with  the  magnifi- 
cent luxury  of  the  Yankton  steamers  and  Con- 
cord coaches.  The  earlier  stage  of  all  this  sort  of 
effort  proved  abortive,  for  the  Government  had 
not  yet  secured  the  consent  of  the  Sioux  Indians 
to  the  cession  of  the  Black  Hills,  and  premature 
parties  of  gold-seekers  either  lost  their  scalps  at 
the  hands  of  the  Indians  or  were  arrested  at  the 
hands  of  the  military  and  left  to  repent  in  prison. 
But  it  was  only  a  question  of  a  short  time  when  it 
was  no  longer  possible  to  hold  back  the  gold- 
hungry  thousands;  military  opposition  to  entry 
somehow  slipped  out  of  sight,  and  the  great  rush 
w^as  on — with  a  tragic  reckoning  still  to  be  made 
with  the  real  proprietors  of  the  Black  Hills.  As 
the  rush  finally  came,  Yankton  gained  the  day 
over  her  competitor  down  the  river,  and  became 
the  accepted  gateway  to  the  marvellous  Eldorado 
of  Western  Dakota. 

To  the  leading  church  of  Yankton  and  the  Ter- 
ritory, and  its  minister,  these  days  of  transient 
crowds  and  excitement  and  swift  expansion 
brought  their  own  opportunity  and  responsibility. 
Mr.  Ward  labored  on  behalf  of  sound  and  substan- 
tial foundations  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  country. 

Ill 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

He  appreciated  as  thoroughly  as  any  Yankton  cit- 
izen the  material  prospects  of  the  town,  and  as 
time  went  on  became  himself  one  of  the  most 
active  promoters  of  business  and  municipal  enter- 
prises. Yet  in  those  times  he  recognized  the  par- 
ticular danger  of  the  haste  to  be  rich.  Ho 
preached  against  the  spirit  of  speculation  and 
exorbitant  rates  of  interest  and  tricky  ways  of 
trade  and  the  repudiation  of  county  bonds,  and 
whatever  shifts  and  expedients  in  private  and 
public  business  would  tend  to  sacrifice  honor  and 
character  and  stability  for  the  sake  of  momentary 
gain.  Such  subjects  he  dealt  with  in  a  very 
specific  and  direct  way  and  with  visible  results. 
Mr.  Ward  recognized  that  the  importance  of  the 
Black  Hills  movement  was  highly  exaggerated. 
He  foresaw  that  Yankton's  future  and  that  of  the 
Territory  at  large  would  after  all  rest  mainly  on 
the  solid  basis  of  agriculture  rather  than  upon 
mines  of  gold  and  silver.  To  those  sturdy  set- 
tlers who  were  patiently  cultivating  their  claims, 
and  sticking  by  them  through  stress  of  drouth, 
and  winter  blizzards,  and  grasshoppers,  and 
Indian  scares — to  them  he  rendered  praise  as  the 
real  founders  of  the  material  future  of  the  coun- 
try. This  idea  of  growth  was  a  favorite  theme 
with  Mr.  Ward,  that  steady  and  substantial 
growth,  in  things  material,  mental  and  moral, 
which  comes  as  the  result  of  time  and  faithful 
cultivation.  "In  all  good  things  time  is  an  essen- 
tial element,"  is  a  saying  of  his  that  gives  the 
note  of  much  of  his  preaching  in  those  days  of 
rush  and  excitement. 

112 


IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

The  strength  and  influence  of  Mr.  Ward's 
church,  as  exerted  upon  these  years  of  swift  immi- 
gration, may  be  inferred  from  a  few  facts  relat- 
ing to  the  year  1875.  The  growth  of  the  Church 
had  kept  pace  with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  city. 
Yankton  in  1875  numbered  over  three  thousand 
inhabitants,  and  the  membership  of  the  Church 
had  increased  to  103.  The  Church  had  main- 
tained now  for  three  years  its  independence  of 
Home  Missionary  support,  and  had  become  noted 
far  and  wide  for  its  large  contributions  to  foreign 
and  home  missionary  causes,  and  for  its  direct 
financial  aid  to  pioneer  churches  and  Sunday 
Schools  that  had  been  started  in  other  places. 
There  were  now  fourteen  Congregational  churches 
in  the  territory,  and  the  example  of  the  Yankton 
Church  in  self-support  and  missionary  benevo- 
lence was  a  shining  admonition  to  all  these,  an 
example  which  is  known  to  have  influenced  older 
churches  in  other  parts  of  the  West  to  adopt  a 
similar  course.  And  this  large  missionary  giving 
on  the  part  of  the  Yankton  Church  was  not  out 
of  its  abundance  but  out  of  its  poverty.  For  not- 
withstanding the  fact  of  swift  immigration  and 
considerable  transient  traffic  for  Yankton,  it  was 
a  period  of  hard  times.  1873  had  been  the  panic 
year,  and  the  movement  into  Dakota  and  even 
the  rush  for  gold  had  been  driven  forward  by 
disaster  in  the  East.  Pioneer  farmers  in  the  ter- 
ritory were  struggling  against  grasshoppers  and 
drouth.  In  the  summer  of  1875  the  black  cloud 
of  grasshoppers  swept  over  Dakota  with  such 
wide  and  terrible  destruction  that  a  large  effort 

113 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

for  charitable  relief  was  organized  and  appeals 
were  made  in  eastern  cities  on  behalf  of  the  des- 
titute settlers.  So  it  was  not  a  time  when  money 
was  plentiful,  and  it  was  only  by  means  of  splen- 
did missionary  inspiration  and  willing  self-denial 
that  Mr.  Ward's  church  was  able  to  accomplish 
what  it  did,  and  exert  its  ever  widening  influence 
upon  the  growing  commonwealth.  Mr.  Ward's 
realization  of  the  far-reaching  results  of  the  work 
the  Church  was  doing  is  expressed  in  the  follow- 
ing passage  from  an  anniversary  sermon  of  1875 
reviewing  the  history  of  the  Church.  ''What  we 
have  counted  up,"  he  said,  after  having  presented 
the  facts  and  figures  of  the  Church's  remarkable 
growth,  "is  the  smallest  part  and  of  the  least 
value,  but  all  the  rest  is  recorded,  and  indelibly, 
in  the  lives  of  thousands  who  have  in  one  way  or 
another  come  into  contact  with  this  Church.  We 
are  working  on  hundreds  that  we  have  never 
seen.  We  are  helping  to  shape  the  lives  of  many 
more  than  have  their  names  on  our  roll.  The 
sum  total  will  appear  one  day  when  the  judgment 
is  set  and  the  books  are  opened." 

This  vision  of  far-reaching  results  was  charac- 
teristic of  Mr.  Ward.  So  it  was  that  in  the  work 
of  his  ministry  he  placed  unusual  emphasis  upon 
the  religious  training  of  children,  by  that  means 
laying  sure  foundations  for  the  future  of  th<^ 
Church.  There  was  not  only  earnest  and 
thorough  work  in  the  Sunday  School,  but  there 
was  carried  on  in  connection  with  the  Church  a 
remarkable  missionary  society  for  children, 
known  as  the  Willing  Hearts.     This  society  met 

114 


IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

every  other  Saturday  afternoon  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Ward  at  their  home — more  than  fifty  children 
thronging  the  rooms  of  the  big  house  and  full  of 
happiness  to  the  brim.  There  were  various  kinds 
of  fun,  with  stories  about  the  people  and  the  chil- 
dren of  foreign  lands  as  interesting  as  any  fairy- 
tales; and  then  a  part  of  the  time  would  be 
devoted  to  the  making  of  beautiful  and  useful  ar- 
ticles of  handicraft,  Mr.  Ward  teaching  the  boys 
and  Mrs.  Ward  the  girls  in  their  respective 
departments  of  work.  In  the  month  of  June  the 
accumulated  products  of  the  year's  industry, 
interspersed  by  bright  and  attractive  articles 
from  the  East  sent  for  the  occasion  by  Mrs. 
Ward's  friends,  would  be  offered  for  sale  at  a 
wonderful  Missionary  Fair,  held  at  the  Ward 
home.  This  was  one  of  the  most  popular  events 
of  the  year.  Everybody  in  town  would  come  to 
buy,  and  would  learn  something  about  the  cause 
of  missions  withal;  and  the  money  would  go  to 
China  and  Japan  and  Africa,  the  children  possess- 
ing a  vivid  sense  of  how  much  good  it  would  do, 
and  following  it  faithfully  with  their  prayers. 
That  society  of  the  Willing  Hearts  was  a  train- 
ing school  in  missionary  knowledge  and  activity, 
and  the  effects  of  it  can  be  traced  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Yankton  Church  to  the  present  time. 
To  build  thus  for  the  future  in  the  lives  of  chil- 
dren was  for  Mr.  Ward  as  simple  and  natural  as 
breathing.  His  remarkable  gift  with  children  is 
something  that  everyone  remembers  who  knew 
him.  He  was  one  of  those  good  friends  whom 
children  came  to  know  as  an  expert  at  mending 

115 


JOSEPH  WAED  OF  DAKOTA 

a  broken  toy  or  at  binding  up  a  wounded  heart. 
He  had  an  inexhaustible  stock  of  good  stories, 
many  of  them  about  Indians  that  he  himself  had 
seen,  and  was  a  capital  reader  of  his  favorite 
"Uncle  Remus"  and  other  good  stories  from 
books.  It  was  because  he  knew  children  so  well 
that  he  was  able  to  touch  in  them  with  remark- 
able power  the  springs  of  the  religious  life.  He 
preached  to  them  effectively.  In  the  course  of 
revival  meetings  he  labored  especially  to  convert 
children  and  bring  them  into  the  Church.  At 
such  times  he  was  wont  to  invite  them  to  come 
to  talk  with  him  in  his  study  at  home,  and  many 
came.  As  a  result  of  his  experience  in  those 
hours  of  heart-to-heart  confidence  with  many 
children  Mr.  Ward  came  to  believe  that  their 
religious  capacity  was  greater  than  usually  real- 
ized, and  that  the  church  ought  to  make  far  more 
of  its  opportunity  in  dealing  with  them. 

Another  of  Mr.  Ward's  undertakings  on  behalf 
of  the  children,  to  which  he  devoted  a  great  deal 
of  thought,  was  the  composing  of  a  children's 
catechism.  This  was  not  by  any  means  done  in 
a  sectarian  spirit;  but  he  had  come  to  believe 
through  experience  with  children  that  instruction 
of  that  kind  was  needed,  particularly  at  that  pe- 
riod of  his  ministry,  when  many  new  families  of 
foreign  nationality  and  all  degrees  of  education 
were  coming  into  the  Church.  His  catechism 
presented  a  form  of  belief  very  moderate  in  its 
orthodoxy,  and  expressed  in  kindly  and  simple 
language  adapted  to  the  minds  of  children. 

The  sectarian  spirit,  it  should  be  said,  had  no 
116 


IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

place  in  Mr.  Ward's  nature;  and  his  religious 
influence  was  not  at  all  confined  within  the 
bounds  of  his  own  denomination.  He  respected 
the  religion  of  every  man,  whatever  his  station  or 
creed;  and  he  was  so  broad  in  his  ideas  and  sym- 
pathy, so  ready  in  practical  charity  and  friend- 
ship, that  all  kinds  of  men  loved  him  and  believed 
in  him.  It  is  remembered  that  there  were  Cath- 
olics in  Yankton  who  always  called  him  "Father 
Ward."  And  the  story  is  told  of  how  the  Catho- 
lic priest  one  time  became  disturbed  because  num- 
bers of  his  people  were  frequenting  services  in  Mr. 
Ward's  church,  and  wrote  to  Bishop  Ireland  desir- 
ing a  special  mandate  to  prohibit  his  parishioners 
from  going  there.  It  happened,  however,  that 
Bishop  Ireland  and  Mr.  Ward,  both  being  states- 
men and  having  a  common  interest  in  the  devel- 
opment of  Dakota,  had  become  good  friends,  so 
Bishop  Ireland  wrote  back  to  the  priest,  saying: 
"It  is  good  for  your  people  to  go  and  hear  Mr. 
Ward.  You  had  better  go  and  hear  him  yourself 
occasionally." 

From  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Ward's  acquaint- 
ance with  Indian  missions  as  related  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  he  became  more  and  more  inter- 
ested in  that  subject  and  in  the  whole  Indian 
question,  especially  in  connection  with  the  con- 
flict with  the  hostile  Sioux  along  the  line  of  the 
opening  of  the  Northern  Pacific,  and  the  struggle 
for  the  possession  of  the  Black  Hills  leading  to 
Custer's  awful  tragedy  in  June,  1876,  followed  by 
the  subjugation  of  most  of  the  hostiles  and  their 
resettlement  upon  various  reservations.    He  was 

117 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

an  ardent  and  outspoken  sympathizer  with  the 
Indians  in  the  wrongs  they  suffered  through 
broken  treaties  and  the  frauds  of  Indian  agents, 
and  he  was  able  to  bring  influence  to  bear  at 
Washington  in  favor  of  honest  administration 
and  the  appointment  of  good  men  as  agents — to 
such  an  extent  that  he  incurred  the  cordial  hostil- 
ity of  men  who  were  profiting  by  fraud  in  Indian 
affairs.  Mr.  Ward  realized  more  than  ever  the 
value  of  Indian  missions  in  promoting  the  peace 
and  safety  of  the  frontier,  and  felt  the  necessity 
of  extending  that  work  now  that  settlement  was 
reaching  farther  up  the  Missouri  and  its  trib- 
utaries, and  west  of  the  river  into  the  country  of 
the  recent  conflict.  In  the  summer  of  1878  Mr. 
Ward  served  as  secretary  of  a  government  com- 
mission, composed  of  General  Stanley,  Major  Hay- 
worth,  and  the  Rev.  A.  L.  Riggs,  which  visited  the 
great  chiefs.  Spotted  Tail  and  Red  Cloud,  up  the 
river,  and  negotiated  with  them  the  location  of 
their  tribes  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rosebud  and  at 
Pine  Ridge,  respectively,  where  they  have  ever 
since  remained.  In  the  following  spring  Mr. 
Ward  became  actively  interested  in  the  cause  of 
the  exiled  tribe  of  Poncas,  who,  in  the  redistribu- 
tion of  tribes  following  the  Sioux  war,  had  been 
removed  by  the  government  from  their  old  home 
by  the  graves  of  their  ancestors  on  the  Missouri 
River,  against  their  will  and  in  violation  of  trea- 
ties and  promises,  to  far-away  Indian  Territory. 
It  seems  that  many  of  them  were  dying  there 
from  disease  or  sheer  homesickness,  and  that  a 
few  had  attempted  the  journey  back  to  the  North, 

118 


IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

only  to  be  captured  by  soldiers  and  forced  to  re- 
turn to  Indian  Territory.  This  cause  of  the 
exiled  Poncas  aroused  sympathy  and  indignation 
in  all  parts  of  the  country.  Mr.  Ward,  deeply 
moved  by  these  events,  took  a  leading  part  in 
interceding  with  the  president  and  Congress  at 
Washington  on  behalf  of  the  Poncas,  being  sup- 
ported by  Missionaries  Kiggs  and  Williamson 
and  others,  and  by  numerously-signed  petitions 
from  Yankton  and  elsewhere,  and  enlisting  in  the 
cause  the  aid  of  his  friend  Governor  Howard, 
then  at  Washington.  In  response  to  such  efforts 
and  public  sentiment  East  and  W^est,  the  govern- 
ment appointed  a  commission  to  secure  such 
relief  as  might  be  possible  for  the  Poncas,  but 
the  original  blunder  proved  irretrievable  and  the 
return  of  the  tribe  to  their  old  home  could  not  be 
brought  about. 

On  account  of  Mr.  Ward's  understanding  of  the 
Indian  people  and  of  the  conditions  and  needs  of 
work  among  them,  he  was  offered  the  appoint- 
ment under  the  American  Board  to  the  position 
of  Field  Secretary  of  Indian  Missions.  The  work 
strongly  attracted  him,  and  he  would  have  ac- 
cepted the  appointment  had  it  not  been  for  the 
affectionate  protests  of  his  church  at  Yankton. 
This  was  not  the  only  position  of  large  impor- 
tance and  responsibility  that  was  open  to 
Mr.  Ward,  in  the  West  and  elsewhere, 
during  his  pastorate  of  the  Yankton  church, 
but  no  other  appears  to  have  tempted  him  in 
the  least. 

Mr.  Ward's  position  in  Dakota  as  the  untitled 
119 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

leader  of  the  denomination  was  indeed  great 
enough.  In  the  National  Councils  of  the  Church 
he  had  become  a  well-known  and  prominent  fig- 
ure, where  it  used  to  be  said  that  Joseph  Ward 
and  Dakota  were  synonymous  terms.  On  the 
subject  of  home  missions  and  of  Indian  missions 
he  had  become  a  leading  authority,  and  not  only 
with  reference  to  Dakota  but  to  the  West  at 
large.  The  heads  of  the  societies  of  the  denomin- 
ation in  the  East  were  accustomed,  as  the  files  of 
his  correspondence  show,  to  consult  him  in  the 
appointing  of  men  to  missionary  service  in  Da- 
kota, as  well  as  in  various  important  questions  of 
plan  and  method  in  their  western  work.  Mr. 
Ward  was  in  touch  with  all  the  new  churches 
which  the  Rev.  Stewart  Sheldon  was  starting  in 
the  frontier  towns,  watching  over  and  encourag- 
ing them  with  fatherly  care.  With  his  knowl- 
edge of  Dakota,  his  grasp  of  the  missionary 
situation,  and  his  enthusiasm  for  that  cause,  Mr. 
Ward  sometimes  found  himself  in  disagreement 
with  the  policies  of  the  missionary  societies  in 
charge  of  the  work,  with  their  offices  in  the  East, 
so  far  away  from  the  field  of  action;  he  was  im- 
patient with  this  remoteness  of  official  control, 
and  what  seemed  to  him  at  times  a  lack  of  appre- 
ciation of  the  needs  of  the  mission  field  in  the 
swiftly-developing  empire  of  the  West;  he  be- 
lieved that  the  churches  themselves  ought  to  be 
placed  more  directly  in  touch  with  particular  mis- 
sionary fields  and  made  responsible  for  them. 
On  these  questions  and  others  he  conferred  and 
corresponded    much    with   leading   men    of   the 

120 


THE  FIRST  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH  OF  ^  ANK.TON 


IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

Church  in  the  East,  and  was  an  active  contributor 
to  the  periodicals  of  the  denomination. 

Mr.  Ward's  influence  in  public  affairs  was 
increasing  during  these  later  years  of  his  Yank- 
ton pastorate,  making  ready  for  the  important 
part  he  soon  was  to  play  in  the  statehood  move- 
ment. He  was  capable  of  exerting  a  powerful 
influence  throughout  the  Territory,  not  only  on 
behalf  of  education  but  of  any  good  cause.  One 
of  the  early  governors  of  the  Territory  said  of 
him:  "Ward  has  more  influence  than  any  other 
man  in  Dakota.  He  can  do  just  what  he  pleases 
with  its  people.  They  call  me  governor,  but  I 
have  not  a  tithe  of  his  power  here."  His  per- 
sonal acquaintance,  based  upon  these  many  years 
of  contact  with  the  work  of  missions,  extended 
to  all  parts  of  Dakota.  Moreover  his  residence 
at  the  capital  gave  him  acquaintance  with  all  of 
the  federal  officials  and  prominent  men  of  the 
Territory.  A  considerable  number  of  these  were 
members  of  Mr.  Ward's  church;  in  fact,  from  the 
membership  of  that  church  a  great  deal  of  what 
is  most  important  in  early  Dakota  history  origi- 
nated. At  the  Ward  home  important  legislation 
was  discussed  and  framed  by  informal  groups  of 
such  men,  or  by  regular  committees  of  the  legis- 
lature assembled  there. 

An  important  event  in  Dakota  history  of  this 
period,  connected  with  the  name  of  Joseph  Ward, 
was  the  founding  of  the  Dakota  Hospital  for  the 
Insane  at  Yankton  in  1879,  of  which  he  was  pres- 
ident of  the  first  board  of  trustees.  This  institu- 
tion, the  first  of  any  kind  to  be  owned  and  con- 

121 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ducted  by  Dakota  Territory,  was  an  achievement 
of  the  administration  of  Governor  Howard,  Mr. 
Ward's  intimate  friend  and  a  member  of  his 
church.  Governor  Howard,  who  had  been  mem- 
ber of  Congress  since  1854,  was  now  giving  the 
closing  years  of  a  lifetime  of  honorable  public 
usefulness  to  devoted  service  as  governor  of  Da- 
kota Territory.  In  founding  the  Hospital  for  the 
Insane  Governor  Howard  lent  his  own  personal 
credit  to  the  Territory  in  order  to  make  possible 
that  necessary  institution  of  public  charity,  and 
advanced  the  actual  funds  to  provide  the  first 
temporary  buildings  for  the  housing  of  the  pa- 
tients.* 

Reference  must  not  be  omitted  to  one  other 
event  which  occurred  about  the  close  of  the 
period  we  are  now  considering.  This  was  the 
great  flood  of  the  spring  of  1881.  It  was  an  im- 
mense disaster,  sw^eeping  away  millions  of  prop- 
erty all  along  the  Missouri  and  tributary  streams, 
blocking  all  traffic  for  weeks,  and  causing  fear- 
ful suffering  from  exposure  and  destitution  all 
along  the  valley  above  and  below  Yankton.  This 
was  the  time  when  that  beautiful  village  of  Green 
Island,  opposite  Yankton,  sharing  the  fate  of 
everything  else  on  the  bottom  lands,  was  swept 
out  of  existence  forever,  the  spot  where  it  then 
stood  being  now  in  the  middle  of  the  swirling 

♦Governor  Howard  died  in  1880,  beloved  by  all  Dakotans. 
General  Beadle  says  of  him:  "He  was  the  most  unselfish  man 
in  public  life  I  ever  knew,  and  we  have  had  many  such."  A 
biographical  sketch  of  him  by  Dr.  Ward  was  published  in 
"The  Monthly  South  Dakotan,"  Vol.  I,  p.  94.  "To  citizens  of 
Dakota,"  Dr.  Ward  writes,  "he  will  always  stand  as  the  model 
governor,  'without  fear  and  without  reproach.'  " 

122 


IN  YANKTON  FROM  1873  TO  1881 

channel  of  the  stream.  Father  Seccombe's 
church  at  Green  Island,  which  was  the  fruit  of 
the  work  Mr.  Ward  had  done  there  at  the  begin- 
ning, was  lifted  from  its  foundations  and  carried 
away.  Crowds  of  people  in  Yankton  from  the 
tops  of  buildings  saw  it  float  off  down  the  stream, 
the  steeple  careening  and  the  bell  ringing  as  it 
was  struck  by  masses  of  ice,  until  it  tipped  com- 
pletely on  its  side  and  floated  on  to  where  it 
lodged  in  the  timber  by  the  limestone  cliff  on  the 
other  side  below  Yankton.  Watchers  on  the  shore 
saw  people  clinging  to  the  roofs  of  houses  that 
were  being  swept  along,  and  others  on  swiftly- 
moving  cakes  of  ice,  and  others  lodged  in  the  tops 
of  trees.  All  along  the  river  settlements  there 
were  performed  daring  deeds  of  rescue  by  men 
who  drove  their  skiffs  for  miles  and  miles 
through  the  perilous  floes  of  ice.  One  of  the 
Yankton  heroes  of  the  flood  was  Deacon  E.  C. 
Dudley,  of  Mr.  Ward's  church.  Mr.  Ward  him- 
self was  secretary  of  a  strong  relief  organization 
which  was  formed  at  Yankton  for  the  aid  of  flood 
sufferers.  This  organization,  under  the  direction 
of  its  general  committee,  composed  of  Ex-gover- 
nor Edmunds  as  chairman,  Mr.  Ward  as  secre- 
tary. Acting  Governor  Hand,  Mayor  J.  R.  San- 
born, and  Judge  Bartlett  Tripp,  and  nobly  aided 
by  the  women  of  Yankton,  brought  swift  and 
effective  relief  to  hundreds  of  destitute  families 
for  considerable  distances  up  and  down  the  river. 
That  year,  after  the  waters  subsided,  the 
drenched  soil  everywhere  produced  marvellous 
crops,  and  Dakota  boomed  as  never  before. 

123 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

The  two  movements  which  were  of  culminating 
importance  in  the  life  of  Joseph  Ward,  the  found- 
ing of  the  College  and  the  founding  of  the  State, 
had  already  begun,  but  these  must  be  taken  up  in 
succeeding  chapters. 


124 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

THE  closing  period  of  Joseph  Ward's  life, 
from  the  founding  of  Yankton  College  in 
1881  to  his  death  in  1889,  coincides  with  the 
period  of  the  struggle  for  statehood  and  its  final 
achievement,  in  which  cause  he  was  a  leading 
figure  from  first  to  last.  It  will  be  expedient  for 
the  sake  of  clearness  to  separate  from  now  on  in 
our  narrative  these  two  lines  of  activity,  taking 
up  for  the  present  chapter  the  subject  of  the 
beginning  years  of  the  College,  and  reserving  for 
the  chapter  to  follow  an  account  of  his  connection 
with  the  statehood  movement. 

The  priority  of  the  founding  of  Yankton  Col- 
lege is  a  significant  fact.  It  was  the  first  institu- 
tion of  collegiate  grade,  not  only  of  South  Dakota, 
not  only  of  the  two  Dakotas,  but  also  of  the  im- 
mense region  of  the  Upper  Missouri  Valley 
included  in  the  original  Dakota  Territory  of  1861, 
and  of  limits  even  beyond  those.  This  fact, 
together  with  the  high  position  which  the  Insti- 
tution has  maintained  from  the  beginning  to  the 
present  time,  is  in  accord  with  the  record  which 
the  Pilgrims  and  their  descendants  have  made  in 
relation  to  higher  education  in  this  country.  They 

127 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

founded  Harvard,  the  first  college  in  the  New 
World,  in  1636,  Yale  in  1701,  Dartmouth  in  1769, 
Bowdoin  in  1794,  Amherst  in  1825,  Oberlin  in 
1833,  Beloit  in  1846,  Iowa  College  in  1847,  Wash- 
burn in  1865,  Carleton  in  1866,  Colorado  Col- 
lege in  1874,  together  w^ith  more  than  a  score  of 
others  all  along  the  way.  And  now  Yankton,  in 
1881,  farthest  to  the  northwest  on  the  new  fron- 
tier, was  added  to  the  honorable  roll  of  colleges 
of  the  Pilgrim  planting. 

That  this  first  college  should  be  founded  under 
the  leadership  of  Joseph  Ward  was  the  natural 
outcome  of  what  had  gone  before.  "Yankton  Col- 
lege began,"  as  he  said  himself,  "with  the  first 
Congregational  church  of  Dakota;  for  out  of  that 
church  came  Yankton  Academy,  and  from  the 
Academy  came  the  first  public  school  system  of 
Dakota,  and  then  Yankton  College,  with  not  only 
the  same  spirit  pervading  them  all,  but  the  same 
men  actually  carrying  on  the  work.  The  trustees 
of  the  Academy  became  the  first  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, and  later  a  large  majority  of  them  were 
trustees  of  the  College.  So  was  carried  out  the 
instruction  of  Dr.  Badger,  who  in  the  first  com- 
mission to  the  pastor  of  the  Yankton  Church, 
enjoined  him  to  'see  to  it  that  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tian education  be  vigorously  carried  on  in  the 
great  Northwest.' "  Mr.  Ward  had  taken  the 
lead  in  each  of  these  steps,  and  the  last  and  most 
important  one,  the  founding  of  a  Christian  col- 
lege, had  been  in  his  view  from  the  first.  He 
began  to  talk  on  the  subject  even  in  the  earlier 
years  of  his  ministry,  and  it  is  remembered  by 

128 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

some  of  the  older  residents  of  Yankton  with  what 
astonishment  they  first  heard  his  proposal  of  set- 
ting up  a  college  in  that  wild  and  sparsely-set- 
tled country  where  Indians  and  buffaloes  were 
still  the  main  occupants  of  the  land.  But  Mr. 
Ward  possessed  an  extraordinary  sense  of  the 
importance  of  beginnings  made  while  things  were 
new,  together  with  the  vision  of  a  prophet,  which 
saw  beyond  the  meagre  present  the  splendid  em- 
pire of  the  future.  Persistently  he  urged  the  pro- 
ject upon  the  attention  of  the  Congregational 
churches,  until  at  length  the  General  Association, 
in  a  session  held  at  Canton,  May  20,  1875,  took 
the  first  formal  step  by  appointing  a  College  Com- 
mittee. "This  Committee,'-  says  Dr.  Ward,  "was 
continued  as  one  of  the  standing  committees  of 
the  Association,  reporting  progress  each  year, 
until  the  meeting  in  Sioux  Falls  in  October,  1880, 
when  all  felt  that  the  time  had  come  to  go  for- 
ward. There  were  at  that  time  twenty-nine 
churches  in  the  Association,  with  a  total  mem- 
bership of  641.     Only  one  of  these  churches  was 

self     supporting There    was    not    a 

penny  from  the  East  to  help  these  feeble  folk, 
and  yet  they  went  on  bravely,  being  mercifully 
kept,  as  we  always  are,  from  knowing  the  full 
weight  of  the  burden  they  had  assumed."  But 
the  state  of  the  times  seemed  now  to  invite  the 
taking  of  that  step.  The  period  of  the  largest 
homestead  immigration  into  Dakota  liad  now 
begun.  The  Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railroad 
was  building  across  the  central  prairie  to  the 
north,  opening  up  an  immense  fertile  region  hith- 

129 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

erto  unsettled,  and  with  the  coming  spring  and 
summer  there  was  to  be  a  bigger  influx  of  popu- 
lation than  had  yet  been  known. 

The  step  having  been  resolved  upon,  the  first 
immediate  question  was  the  location  of  the  pro- 
posed institution.  The  Association  appointed  a 
special  meeting  for  this  purpose  to  be  held  at 
Yankton,  January  12,  1881.  The  meeting 
occurred  in  the  heart  of  the  severest  winter  yet 
known  in  Dakota,  the  winter  of  the  great  snows 
preceding  the  flood.  Roads  were  in  fearful  con- 
dition; it  was  only  the  utmost  devotion  to  the 
cause  that  brought  together  the  considerable  num- 
ber that  were  present.  It  was  there  voted  to 
locate  the  college  at  Yankton,  ".vet  not  to  be  in 
undue  haste  in  so  important  an  action,  and  to 
give  opportunity  to  the  newer  churches  that  were 
then  fast  coming  into  life,  the  Association  ad- 
journed till  May  25,  to  meet  at  Canton  and  again 
consider  the  question.  Here  again,  coming 
together  through  vast  floods,  as  in  January  they 
had  braved  deep  snows  in  their  hundreds  of 
miles  of  travel,  the  brethren  spent  three  days 
seeking  the  divine  guidance  for  the  final  settle- 
ment of  the  question,  'Where  shall  we  locate  our 
college?'  Without  a  dissenting  voice,  the  same 
decision  as  before  was  reached,  and  Yankton  was 
chosen  as  the  place."* 

There  was  soon  formed  a  corporate  organiza- 

♦Joseph  Ward  and  Bphraim  Miner  drove  together  from 
Yankton  to  attend  that  Canton  meeting,  a  distance  of  seventy- 
five  miles.  At  the  Vermillion  river  they  swam  their  horses 
behind  a  skiff  across  the  swollen  stream,  floating  the  buggy 
over  on  the  skiff. 

130 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

tion,  under  the  laws  of  the  Territory,  for  admin- 
istering the  affairs  of  the  new  institution.  The 
incorporators  were  to  constitute  a  self-perpetuat- 
ing body  having  general  control  over  the  College, 
but  the  immediate  administration  of  its  affairs 
was  to  be  entrusted  to  a  board  of  nine  trustees, 
to  be  elected  by  the  Corporate  Board  from  its  own 
membership.  The  provisional  Board  of  Trustees, 
as  elected  by  the  corporation  at  a  meeting  held 
in  Yankton,  August  2,  1881,  was  composed  of  the 
following  gentlemen:  the  Kev.  Joseph  Ward,  of 
Yankton;  the  Bev.  Stewart  Sheldon,  of  Yankton; 
E.  P.  Wilcox,  Esq.,  of  Yankton;  the  Bev.  Lucius 
Kingsbury,  of  Canton;  the  Bev.  Charles  Sec- 
combe,  of  Springfield;  Ex-governor  Newton  Ed- 
munds, of  Yankton;  the  Hon.  Ephraim  Miner,  of 
Yankton;  the  Hon.  John  B.  Jackson,  of  Valley 
Springs;  and  the  Hon.  Josiah  B.  Sanborn,  of  Yank- 
ton. According  to  the  Articles  of  Incorporation 
eleven  professorships  were  to  be  ultimately  estab- 
lished, covering  the  field  of  a  broad  and  sound  cur- 
riculum of  collegiate  study.  The  charter  of  the 
College  as  a  private  corporation  under  the  laws  of 
Dakota  Territory  was  granted  August  30,  1881. 

The  organization  of  the  College  had  been  car- 
ried thus  to  completion  mainly  as  a  work  of  faith. 
The  enterprise  was  supremely  characteristic  of 
Joseph  Ward,  whose  rule  of  action  in  all  affairs 
was  to  first  make  sure  that  a  thing  ought  to  be 
done,  in  other  words  that  God  wanted  it  done, 
and  then  to  begin  doing  it  at  once,  having  no  doubt 
as  to  its  ultimate  success.  So  in  the  starting  of 
Yankton  College  all  there  was  of  tangible  sub- 

131 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

stance  in  hand  was  a  building-site  of  twenty  acres 
on  what  is  now  known  as  College  Hill,  and  eleven 
thousand  dollars  in  money,  as  given  by  the  town 
of  Yankton  to  secure  the  location.  Nine  thou- 
sand of  the  money  had  been  contributed  by  mem- 
bers of  Mr.  Ward's  church,  "given,"  as  they 
assured  him,  "only  to  gain  the  privilege  of  giving 
more  bye  and  bye."  The  first  thing  needed  there- 
fore was  more  money,  and  that  fall  the  Trustees 
resolved  to  set  about  immediately  the  raising  of 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  Before  this  maiden 
quest  was  begun,  however,  a  public  gathering 
was  held  on  Sunday,  October  30,  on  the  bare 
bluff  north  of  town  designed  for  the  campus  of  the 
forthcoming  college,  and  the  ground  consecrated 
to  the  cause  of  Christian  education.  An  auspi- 
cious circumstance  of  that  occasion  was  the  pres- 
ence of  a  group  of  young  ministers  known  as  the 
"Yale  Dakota  Band,"  recently  come  to  Dakota  to 
begin  their  career,  and  resolved  as  one  part  of 
their  mission  to  aid  in  the  founding  of  a  Christian 
college.  These  gentlemen  were  Messrs.  C.  W. 
Shelton,  A.  B.  Case,  J.  R.  Reitzel,  W.  H.  Thrall, 
P.  B.  Fisk,  P.  E.  Holp,  and  W.  S.  Hubbard;  and 
very  faithfully,  in  one  capacity  and  another,  they 
lent  their  support  to  the  undertaking  now  begun.* 

*The  members  of  the  Yale  Dakota  Band  brought  with  them 
from  the  East  a  silver  dollar,  which  had  been  sent  to  Dakota 
as  the  first  dollar  toward  the  founding  of  the  first  college  in 
that  new  country.  Rev.  James  L.  Hill,  D.D..  of  Salem,  Massa- 
chusetts, was  the  donor,  and  he  kindly  sends  me  the  following 
account  of  the  incident: 

"When  the  South  Dakota  Band  having  held  a  meeting  in 
New  Haven,  held  one  also  in  Boston,  they  made  addresses  on 
Monday  morning  before  the  Ministers'  Meeting,  and  I  gave 
them  a  silver  dollar,  saying  that  a  college  would  inevitably 

132 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

The  task  of  raising  funds,  which  afterwards, 
when  Mr.  Ward  was  elected  to  the  formal  head- 
ship of  the  Institution,  fell  mainly  to  his  hands, 
was  at  first  shared  by  others.  The  Rev.  Charles 
Seccombe,  who  had  been  from  the  first  a  strong 
advocate  of  the  cause,  and  others,  were  associated 
,  with  Mr.  Ward  as  a  committee  to  solicit  funds. 
The  Rev.  C.  W.  Shelton,  of  the  Yale  Dakota 
Band,  was  appointed  a  regular  financial  agent, 
and  made  a  trip  through  the  East,  meeting  with 
considerable  success.  But  in  April  of  the  follow- 
ing year  Mr.  Ward's  church  voted  to  give  him  a 
release  of  six  months  from  pastoral  duties  in 
order  that  he  might  present  the  cause  of  Yankton 
College  among  the  churches  of  the  Territory,  and 
as  far  as  thought  best  to  friends  in  the  East. 

The  beginning  was  encouraging  enough.  He 
went  first  to  the  church  at  Vermillion.  "I  did  not 
expect  much  there  in  the  way  of  money,"  he 
writes,  "as  the  church  was  washed  away  in  the 
great  flood  of  a  year  ago  and  every  one  of  the 
members  lost  very  largely  of  private  property  in 
the  same  way.  The  little  of  the  town  left  by  the 
flood  was  removed  to  the  bluff.  Other  buildings 
were  erected.    A  new  and  beautiful  church  was 

come  of  their  work  and  this  was  the  first  dollar  toward  it. 
An  account  of  this  was  printed  in  "The  Advance,"  which  I  have. 
Later  Mr.  W.  B.  D.  Gray  brought  the  dollar  East,  and  threw 
it  into  my  lap,  saying  that  it  was  the  first  dollar  given  to 
the  College  and  was  found  in  President  Ward's  desk  after  his 
death.  My  father  gave  the  first  dollar  to  found  Iowa  College 
and  this  fact  suggested  to  me  the  gift  of  the  first  dollar  to 
Yankton  College.  The  account  of  this  gift  of  the  first  dollar 
to  Yankton  appears  in  "The  Advance"  of  May  5,  1881,  proving 
the  date  of  the  gift  to  have  been  about  Monday,  April  25, 
1881." 

133 


JOSEPH  WAKD  OF  DAKOTA 

built  costing  flTOO  and  recently  dedicated.  There 
was  no  general  notice  given  of  mv  coming,  so  that 
many  did  not  know  it  until  they  came  to  the 
church  Sabbath  day.  I  read  the  first  chapter  of 
Joshua,  and  drew  a  parallel  between  the  work 
and  history  of  the  Jews,  and  that  done  by  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  and  yet  to  be  done  by  us  and  our 
children  in  taking  possession  of  this  land  in  the 
name  of  Christ.  One  way  of  doing  this  is  to 
establish  Christian  schools  and  colleges,  to  be 
maintained  and  endowed  by  Christian  men  and 
women.  Then  I  told  them  briefly  what  had  been 
done  and  what  we  wished  them  to  do.  First,  to 
give  their  praj^ers.  Second,  their  children.  Third, 
books — at  least  one  good  book  from  each  home. 
Fourth,  money,  both  in  cash  in  hand  and  promises 
to  pay."  The  result,  in  the  fourth  particular  of 
Mr.  Ward's  request,  footed  up  to  |166.34,  "a  most 
cheering  beginning,"  he  concludes,  "in  this  work 
which  I  have  taken  up  very  reluctantly." 

That  scene  at  Vermillion  gives  the  keynote  of 
all  of  Joseph  Ward's  work.  In  his  soliciting  for 
the  College  there  was  always  the  same  unworldly 
spirit;  with  him  a  prayer  or  an  encouraging  word 
would  be  valued  and  remembered  side  by  side 
with  a  gift  of  thousands  of  dollars.  The  idea, 
also,  of  establishing  Christian  education,  and  of 
the  whole  work  of  establishing  a  Christian  com- 
monwealth at  the  West,  in  the  spirit  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers,  was,  as  we  have  noted  before,  at 
the  very  heart  of  all  that  he  undertook  in  Dako- 
ta; and  he  kept  in  mind  always  that  grand  epic 
parallel  back  of  it  all,  from  Old  Testament  his- 

134 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

tory,  of  the  children  of  Israel  going  forward  to 
take  possession  of  the  promised  land.  Jehovah's 
charge  to  Joshua,  which  he  read  that  Sabbath  at 
Vermillion,  was  the  passage  of  Scripture  which 
Mr.  Ward  most  frequently  read  in  public,  and 
which  he  faithfully  appropriated  to  his  own  work, 
and  to  that  of  all  those  who  were  taking  part  in 
the  upbuilding  of  the  new  western  country. 

"Now  therefore  arise,  go  over  this  Jordan,  thou  and 
all  this  people,  unto  the  land  zvJiich  I  do  give  to  them, 
even  to  the  children  of  Israel.  Every  place  that  the  sole 
of  your  foot  shall  tread  upon,  to  you  have  I  given  it,  as 
I  spake  unto  Moses.  From  the  wilderness  and  this 
Lebanon,  even  unto  the  great  river,  the  river  Euphrates, 
all  the  land  of  the  Hittites,  and  unto  the  great  sea  toward 
the  going  dozvn  of  the  sun,  shall  he  your  border.  There 
shall  not  any  man  be  able  to  stand  before  thee  all  the 
days  of  thy  life:  as  I  zvas  with  Moses,  so  I  will  be  with 
thee;  I  will  not  fail  thee  nor  forsake  thee.  Be  strong  and 
of  good  courage;  for  thou  shalt  cause  this  people  to  in- 
herit the  land  which  I  sware  unto  their  fathers  to  give 
them.  Only  be  strong  and  very  courageous,  to  observe 
to  do  according  to  all  the  law,  which  Moses  my  servant 
commanded  thee;  turn  not  from  it  to  the  right  hand  nor 
to  the  left,  that  thou  mayest  have  good  success  whither- 
soever thou  goest." 

Following  that  visit  to  Vermillion,  he  went  on 
his  way  rejoicing  among  the  churches  of  the  Ter- 
ritory, meeting  with  encouraging  success,  merci- 
fully spared,  as  he  has  said,  the  knowledge  of 
how  this  work  of  raising  money  would  grow  from 
year  to  year  into  an  overwhelming  burden,  when 
no  longer  those  easy  hundreds,  but  the  hard  thou- 

135 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

sands,  and  the  terrible  tens  of  thousands  must  be 
found  in  order  to  meet  the  necessities  of  a  grow- 
ing college. 

On  the  afternoon  of  June  15,  of  that  year  1882, 
was  held  the  ceremonial  of  laying  the  corner 
stone  of  the  first  college  building.  As  a  prelude 
to  the  ceremony  a  procession  of  five  hundred  pub- 
lic school  children,  in  charge  of  Professor  Bris- 
toll,  the  city  board  of  education,  the  mayor  and 
city  council  and  numerous  citizens,  on  foot  and 
in  carriages,  all  headed  by  a  band,  started  from 
the  high  school  building,  and  passing  along  the 
streets  and  across  the  Rhine  wound  its  way  up 
the  green  slope  of  the  hill  on  which  the  College 
was  located.  Each  of  the  children  carried  a 
bouquet  of  flowers.  A  thousand  spectators  gath- 
ered about  the  excavation,  at  the  corner  of  which 
the  foundation  had  been  built  up  to  the  required 
height,  and  around  it  a  platform  suitable  for  the 
exercises.  After  Scripture  reading  and  prayer, 
the  copper  box  in  which  were  sealed  the  docu- 
ments proper  to  the  occasion  was  deposited  in  its 
place,  and  then  the  long  procession  of  school  chil- 
dren marched  across  the  platform,  each  in  turn 
placing  his  bouquet  of  flowers  on  the  box.  A  fea- 
ture of  this  movement  that  attracted  general  at- 
tention was  the  conspicuous  part  taken  by  a  little 
colored  boy,  who  marched  at  the  head  of  the  pro- 
cession and  dropped  the  first  bouquet  upon  the 
box. 

Then  followed  the  address  of  Mr.  Ward,  rep- 
resenting the  Board  of  Trustees,  which  was  in 
part  as  follows: 

136 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

"We  have  asked  you  here  today  to  witness  that 
we  pledge,  as  some  have  had  to  pledge  before, 
^our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred  honor/ 
that  this  institution  to-day  established  shall  be 
carried  on  to  the  end  of  all  that  can  be  accom- 
plished by  human  faith  and  human  works,  resting 
on  and  working  under  the  blessing  of  God.  We 
trust  this  college  may  be  like  a  city  set  upon  a 
hill,  whose  light  and  warmth  shall  reach  to  all 
around.  We  hope  it  may  be  like  a  high  watch 
tower,  from  which  may  be  gained  so  wide  an  out- 
look over  the  land  that  wise  plans  for  the  good 
of  the  commonweal  may  here  be  made  that  shall 
help  to  shape  our  state  to  the  honoring  of  God 
and  the  bettering  of  man.  It  is  not  often  that 
history  can  be  detected  in  the  act  of  doing  her 
work.  She  moves  so  silently  that  her  greatest 
deeds  are  not  suspected  of  their  greatness  until 
they  stand  in  the  long  perspective  of  time  that  is 
past.  But  to-day  we  can  see  her  in  the  very  act 
and  article  of  her  high  work.  Yet  even  this  deed 
of  to-day  will  take  on  more  of  beauty  and  power 
as  the  years  go  by.  We  shall  live  long  enough 
to  look  back  with  gladness  and  pride  to  this  day. 
These  children  will  see  its  worth  more  than  we. 
Children  not  yet  born  will  tell  the  story  of  this 
corner  stone  and  draw  from  it  lessons  for  the  en- 
couragement of  those  who  are  to  come  after  them 
— for  we  cling  fast  to  the  thought  that  this  insti- 
tution is  to  endure  as  long  as  the  hill  shall  last 
and  the  river  run."  * 

At  about  this  time,  June,  1882,  the  degree  of 

♦From  "The  Yankton  Press  and  Dakotan,"  .June  16.  1882. 

137 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

Doctor  of  Divinity  was  conferred  upon  Joseph 
Ward  bA'  Knox  College. 

A  little  later  in  the  summer  Mr.  Ward,  con- 
tinuing his  quest  for  funds,  made  the  first  of  his 
many  pilgrimages  to  New  England  on  behalf  of 
the  College,  taking  Mrs.  Ward  and  the  children 
with  him  to  make  their  temporary  home  with 
relatives  there  while  he  was  about  his  work — 
as  he  did  frequently  thereafter.  "My  work  in 
New  England  for  the  College  has  only  just  be- 
gun," he  writes — scarcely  realizing  how  large  a 
truth  he  had  stated.  Here,  too,  the  beginnings 
were  bright.  He  was  among  friends  who  had 
known  him  long,  and  had  watched  his  work  grow- 
ing in  Dakota  for  these  fourteen  years.  In  fact 
Mr.  Ward's  influence  in  the  East  had  been  recog- 
nized from  the  first  as  the  main  hope  of  the  Col- 
lege, and  the  circle  of  his  own  and  Mrs.  Ward's 
relatives  and  personal  friends  formed  the  nucleus 
of  the  financial  constituency  which  he  gradually 
built  up  for  the  Institution.  Jottings  in  his  note- 
book of  this  trip  read  very  pleasantly.  For  in- 
stance:  "Met  Mr. and  went  with  him  to  Au- 

burndale,  his  home,  and  spent  the  night.  He  was 
already  partly  posted  about  our  college.  Before 
I  went  to  bed  he  gave  me  his  check  for  |250, 
which  was  a  blessed  preparation  for  sleep.    This 

morning  he  sent  me  to  Mr.  ,  who  received 

me  very  kindly."     ....     "Dr.  L gave  me 

$5  for  the  Willing  Hearts  Fund,  and  prayed  for 
those  billing  hearts'  very  earnestly."  *  .     .     .     . 

*The  Willing  Hearts  had  undertaken  the  raising  of  !?1,000 
to  found  a  scholarship  in  Yankton  College,  keeping  up  at  the 
same  time  their  contributions  to  foreign  missions. 

138 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

"Deacon  promised  me  |1,000  before  the 

end  of  the  year.     I  hardly  had  time  to  get  my 
breath  to  thank  him  before  he  was  gone/' 

The  appointed  time  had  now  come  for  starting 
the  actual  work  of  the  College.  The  building 
which  had  been  begun  on  College  Hill  was  not 
ready  for  occupancy  until  the  following  fall,  1883, 
and  consequently  the  first  sessions  were  held  in 
the  chapel  of  the  Congregational  Church.  Work 
was  there  begun  October  4,  1882,  with  five  pupils 
present — the  first  young  men  and  women  in  Da- 
kota to  enter  upon  a  course  of  higher  education 
in  a  home  institution.  The  names  of  those  who 
began  as  students  of  Yankton  College  that  first 
morning  are:  William  P.  Dewey,  Jr.,  of  Yankton; 
Edward  D.  Disbrow,  of  Akron,  Iowa;  Edgar  M. 
Hand,  of  Yankton;  Jennie  D.  Ketchum,  of  Yank- 
ton; and  Lena  McGlumph}^,  of  Yankton.  For  that 
first  year  the  work  of  instruction  was  carried  on 
by  Professor  William  M.  Bristoll  and  his  wife, 
Mrs.  Eosa  O.  Bristoll.  This  is  one  of  the  facts 
which  mark  the  continuity  and  organic  develop- 
ment of  the  educational  enterprises  which  Dr. 
Ward  carried  forward  in  Yankton,  for  Professor 
Bristoll  had  first  been  appointed  as  principal  of 
the  Yankton  Academy,  and  afterward,  from  the 
reorganization  of  that  institution  into  the  public 
high  school,  as  effected  under  Dr.  Ward's  leader- 
ship, had  continued  for  eight  years  as  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools  in  Yankton.  He  and  his  wife 
now  took  up,  with  "great  faithfulness  and 
patience  under  the  trying  conditions  incident  to 
the  beginning  of  things,"  the  work  of  the  new 

139 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

college.  Soon  after  teaching  was  begun,  the  in- 
fant institution  was  removed  to  a  small  build- 
ing of  three  rooms  on  Walnut  Street  just  south  of 
the  Church,  which  it  continued  to  occupy  during 
the  first  year.* 

The  original  enrollment  of  five  students  in- 
creased in  the  course  of  the  year,  reaching  the 
very  respectable  total  of  forty-one.  One  of  that 
company,  writing  some  years  afterwards  in  rem- 
iniscence of  that  Year  One  of  Yankton  College, 
tells  how  Dr.  Ward  in  conducting  the  chapel  ser- 
vices "read  out  of  a  little  old  leather-covered 
Bible;  and  Professor  Bristoll  played  upon  the 
little  wheezy  old  organ,  now  in  the  Congrega- 
tional chapel.  Right  after  chapel-time  the  first 
class  that  ever  studied  Goodwin's  Greek  Gram- 
mar in  Yankton  recited;  and  that  class  worked  as 
hard  as  any  class  in  Yankton  has  worked  over 
their  Greek.  Virgil  was  read  all  the  year  by  the 
Senior  Preparatory  Class. "t 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  held  Jan- 
uary 16,  1883,  the  following  resolution  was 
adopted: 

'^Resolved,  First,  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  Board 
the  time  has  come  for  choosing  a  president  for 
Yankton  College. 

"Second,  that  Rev.  Joseph  Ward,  of  Yankton, 

*This  historic  building  was  afterwards  removed  to  a  lot 
on  Cedar  Street,  one  block  west,  where  it  still  stands. 

fProfessor  McMurtry,  in  his  "History  of  Yankton  College," 
quotes  the  above  reminiscence,  and  adds:  "It  seems  that  on 
one  point  the  writer  of  the  above  was  mistaken;  because  Rev. 
Charles  M.  Sheldon  states  that  he  himself  constituted  a  class 
of  one  which  began  the  study  of  Greek  in  the  Yankton  High 
School,  at  a  period  preceding  the  birth  of  the  College." 

140 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGEl 

is  the  man  we  need  and  desire  for  that  position; 
and  that  we,  therefore,  unanimously  invite  and 
urge  him  to  accept  the  position,  and  to  enter  at 
once  upon  his  work." 

Dr.  Ward's  acceptance  of  the  presidency  of 
the  College  involved  his  resignation  as  pastor  of 
the  Yankton  Congregational  Church,  which  oc- 
curred May  13, 1883.  In  the  fourteen  years  of  his 
ministry  the  Church  had  increased  in  membership 
from  14  to  234.  From  first  to  last  the  most  con- 
spicuous fact  in  the  life  of  the  Church  had  been 
that  devotion  to  the  cause  of  missions  to  which 
attention  has  already  been  drawn.  This  faith- 
fulness to  the  work  of  missions  was  what  Dr. 
Ward  regarded  as  the  charter  of  existence  for 
any  church,  and  it  had  been  unquestionably  the 
main  source  of  that  remarkable  growth  and 
power  which  his  own  church  had  achieved.  Now 
the  time  had  come  when  he  must  lay  down  the 
work  which  he  had  carried  forward  with  such 
fidelity  and  success  for  all  these  years.  Nothing 
could  exceed  the  love  of  the  people  for  their  min- 
ister, but  the  call  of  the  College  which  their  own 
hands  had  so  largely  helped  to  create  was  in  a 
sense  their  own  call  to  him,  and  they  now  gave 
him  over  to  that  cause  to  which  they  had  already 
pledged  their  faith. 

The  ensuing  summer  Dr.  Ward  was  occupied 
with  preparations  for  the  enlarged  work  of  the 
College  which  was  planned  for  its  second  year. 
A  faculty  of  seven  teachers  was  now  engaged. 
Among  these  were  the  Eev.  E.  C.  Norton,  who 
was  made  professor  of  Greek  and  instructor  in 

141 


JOSEPH  WAKD  OF  DAKOTA 

Mathematics,  and  the  Rev.  John  T.  Shaw,  who 
was  made  professor  of  Latin  and  principal  of  the 
Preparatory  Department.  Professor  Norton  was  a 
{graduate  of  Amherst  and  had  pursued  post-grad- 
uate study  at  Johns  Hopkins,  and  Professor  Shaw 
was  a  graduate  of  Brown  University  and  Andover 
Seminary.     Both  were  young  men  of  character 
and  ability,  and  were  destined  to  have  a  large 
share  in  the  early  development  of  the  College.   In 
securing  such  men  as  these,  Dr.  Ward  held  out  no 
"advantages"  in  the  worldly  sense,  but  the  privi- 
lege of  sharing  with  him  in  hardship  for  a  wor- 
thy cause.     "We  are  in  a  struggle,"  he  wrote  to 
Professor  Shaw,  "and  need  the  hearty  and  self- 
sacrificing  co-operation  of  every  one  of  the  faculty. 
The  salary  is  a  thousand  dollars.     It  may  be  that 
this  cannot  all  be  paid  the  first  year,  but  it  will 
be  paid  in  time."     The  course  of  study  laid  out 
for  this  second  year  embraced,  in  addition  to  pre- 
paratory  courses,   a   complete  college   course  of 
four  years,  abreast  of  the  standards  at  that  time 
prevailing  in  the  old  and  well  established  colleges 
of  the  East.     Departments  of  Music  and  Art  were 
also  started,  a  substantial  beginning  of  a  library 
was  made,  a  valuable    collection    of    geological 
and   mineralogical   specimens   was   given  to   the 
College  by  the    Dakota    Scientific    Association, 
debating  and   declamation   contests   were  insti- 
tuted,   a    student's    Christian    Association     was 
organized,  soon  developing  into  separate  Young 
Men's  and  Young   Women's   Christian    Associa- 
tions aflaiiated  with  the  regular  National  Asso- 
ciations.    The  first  year,  as  we  have  noted,  there 

142 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

was  a  total  enrollment  of  forty-three.  The  sec- 
ond year  one  hundred  eight  were  enrolled,  of 
whom  seven  were  classified  as  freshmen  in  the 
college  course. 

President  Ward's  dream  was  thus  passing  into 
substantial  reality,  including,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, an  increasing  budget  which  had  to  be  pro- 
vided for — but  that  is  a  subject  which  lies  within 
the  province  of  a  later  chapter. 

During  the  summer  of  1884,  the  new  building, 
which  had  been  in  use  throughout  the  preceding 
year  in  an  unfinished  condition,  was  carried  to 
completion.  It  was  a  handsome  and  substantial 
structure,  built  of  Sioux  Falls  jasper,  three  stories 
and  basement,  with  a  dome-shaped  bell  tower 
at  one  corner,  and  a  clock  tower  with  spire  at  the 
other.  It  occupied  a  site  at  the  top  of  "College 
Hill"  overlooking  the  town,  and  commanding  a 
superb  view  of  the  Missouri  River  and  its  broad 
valley  for  miles  and  miles,  and  the  bluffs  of  the 
Nebraska  shore.  For  a  number  of  years  this 
single  building  was  "The  College,"  the  third  floor 
serving  as  dormitory  and  scientific  museum,  and 
the  basement  as  dining  hall,  while  the  first  and 
second  floors  embraced  all  else — recitation  rooms, 
library,  and  chapel. 

The  new  building  was  dedicated  with  impres- 
sive ceremony  at  the  opening  of  this  third  college 
year  of  1884-5,  and  in  connection  therewith  was 
held  the  formal  inauguration  of  President  Ward. 
It  was  one  of  the  most  notable  occasions  in  the 
history  of  the  College.  In  order  to  bring  the 
actual   beginnings  and  the  future  prospects  of 

143 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

the  Institution  as  strongly  as  possible  before 
the  minds  of  the  churches,  it  was  arranged  to 
hold  the  annual  meeting  of  the  General  Asso- 
ciation of  Congregational  Churches  simulta- 
neously with  the  dedicatory  exercises;  and  never 
before  had  the  Association  meeting  been  so 
largely  attended.  The  "Dedicatory  Address"  for 
the  College  was  given  by  Dr.  Ward's  classmate 
and  friend,  Professor  W.  J.  Tucker,  D.D.,  of  An- 
dover  Seminary,  afterward  President  of  Dart- 
mouth College;  and  other  notable  addresses, 
appropriate  to  this  event  of  extraordinary  his- 
toric significance,  were  given  by  representatives 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  of  the  College  Faculty, 
and  by  others,  including  Chief  Justice  Edgerton, 
representing  the  Territory,  who  bore  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  value  of  such  an  institution  to 
the  future  of  the  Commonwealth.  The  inaugural 
address  of  President  Ward  expressed  in  memor- 
able words  that  Pilgrim  ideal  of  higher  education 
which  was  the  growth  of  his  own  character  and 
training.  So  broad  and  sound  were  the  concep- 
tions he  presented  that  the  address  might  well 
stand  as  a  sufficient  justification  for  the  existence 
and  continued  maintenance  of  institutions  of  that 
type.  The  following  paragraphs,  which  have 
been  selected  for  quotation  by  Professor  McMur- 
try  in  his  "History  of  Yankton  College,"  well  indi- 
cate the  spirit  of  the  address: 

"If  a  college  did  nothing  else  in  this  Western 
land  than,  by  its  sharp  contrast  with  eager  haste 
for  wealth  and  power,  to  show  by  its  quiet, 
patient,  long-continued  following    of    something 

144 


*  S. 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE! 

that  did  not  immediately  pay,  that  life  had  an- 
other and  possibly  a  wiser  interpretation,  this 
result  alone  would  justify  all  that  is  done  to  build 
them  up. 

"Is  it  a  small  thing  to  turn  a  man  or  woman 
aside  from  mere  gain  to  the  building  up  of  char- 
acter? Is  it  nothing  to  train  up  citizens  that  can 
find  no  temptation  in  wealth  to  make  them 
neglect  duty?  Is  it  wasted  time  to  fit  men  to  do 
things  thoroughly,  just  for  the  sake  of  doing 
them,  even  though  they  may  never  be  paid  ever 
so  remotely  for  it? 

"What  can  be  nobler  than  to  found  an  institu- 
tion that,  by  the  simple  force  of  its  daily  life, 
shall  go  out  among  the  young  and  call  each  one 
to  a  higher  life  than  he  could  have  found  without 
it! 

"Least  of  all  can  Western  colleges  afford  to 
lower  the  standard  and  let  the  clamor  for  some- 
thing practical  make  them  reject  the  ancient 
standards.  Not  for  the  sake  of  being  as  good  as 
Eastern  colleges,  least  of  all  to  tamely  copy  them, 
but  for  the  sake  of  sterling  honesty,  to  build  up 
genuine  character,  to  stand  in  the  breach  against 
the  trading,  mercantile  spirit,  to  develop  a  race 
of  men  that  are  willing  to  work  and  wait,  and 
having  done  all  to  stand,  must  we  have  an  ideal 
that  is  hard,  not  easy  to  reach.  Everything  is 
raw  and  crude.  Our  towns  run  wild.  It  was  not 
mawkish  sentiment  that  made  Matthew  Arnold 
say  that  America  dreadfully  needed  some  old 
ruins.  He  felt  that  our  intense  life  of  the  pres- 
ent needed  to  be  balanced  by  looking  to  the  past." 

145 


JOSEPH   WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

This  upholding  of  the  personal  and  ideal  ele- 
ment in  education,  this  emphasis  upon  intellec- 
tual discipline  for  its  own  sake,  and  upon  the 
humanities,  in  a  broad  sense  of  the  term,  in  a 
practical  and  commercial  age,  is  what  has  chiefly 
distinguished  the  position  of  the  college  in  this 
country  from  that  of  the  university,  and  of  the 
professional  and  technical  school.  Its  power  is 
maintained  through  personalities  rather  than 
through  organization  and  material  means.  That 
famous  definition  of  a  college  as  "Mark  Hopkins 
sitting  on  one  end  of  a  log  and  a  student  on  the 
other"  expresses  its  spirit. 

It  was  according  to  this  pure  ideal  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  college  that  Joseph  Ward  created  this 
first  institution  of  higher  learning  in  the  Upper 
Missouri  Valley;  and  so  deeply  did  he  impress  his 
personality  and  ideals  upon  its  beginning  years 
that  the  Institution  in  its  growing  life  since  then 
has  been  consciously  and  continuously  faithful  to 
the  purpose  of  the  founder. 

The  motto  which  Dr.  Ward  chose  for  the  col- 
lege was,  "Christ  for  the  world,"  and  the  well- 
known  hymn  from  which  the  phrase  is  taken 
was  adopted  as  the  College  Hymn.  Upon  the 
basis  of  this  phrase,  "Christ  for  the  world,"  were 
formed  the  familiar  verses  which  are  inscribed  on 
the  college  bell.  They  were  written  by  Dr. 
Charles  M.  Sheldon,  and  under  the  following  cir- 
cumstances. During  the  years  in  which  the  Col- 
lege was  being  started  and  the  first  building- 
erected,  Mr.  Sheldon  was  attending  Andover  The- 
ological   Seminary.     An   eastern   friend     of    the 

146 


THE    FOUNDING    OF    YANKTON    COLLEGE 

Institution  had  just  contributed  the  money  for 
the  purchase  of  a  bell.  At  the  time  when  the 
order  had  been  given  and  the  bell  was  about  to  be 
cast,  Dr.  Ward  happened  to  be  at  Andover.  It 
occurred  to  him  that  it  would  be  desirable  to  have 
an  appropriate  inscription  upon  the  bell;  and  so 
he  called  in  his  nephew,  then  attending  the  Sem- 
inary and  of  some  reputation  for  literary  gifts, 
and  told  him  what  he  wanted — some  verses  for 
the  bell  to  accord  with  the  motto  already  chosen 
for  the  College.  Mr.  Sheldon  sat  down  with  pen- 
cil and  paper,  and  in  a  few  moments  had  com- 
posed some  lines,  which  he  handed  to  his  uncle. 
These  seeming  to  Dr.  Ward  not  quite  satisfac- 
tory, Mr.  Sheldon  tried  again,  and  presently  pro- 
duced the  following: 

"At  mom.  at  noon,  at  twilight  dim, 
My  voice  shall  sound,  the  earth  around. 
Christ  for  the  world,  the  world  for  him." 

Dr.  Ward  said  at  once,  "Those  are  just  right," 
and  so  that  beautiful  legend  was  inscribed  at  its 
casting  upon  the  college  bell. 

Dr.  Ward  seems  to  have  been  determined  to 
impress  this  sentiment  upon  the  life  of  the  Col- 
lege. He  himself  before  his  death  drew  a  sketch 
for  a  college  seal,  which  long  after  was  brought 
to  light  and  adopted — a  design  showing  an  open 
book,  above  it  the  cross  shedding  its  radiance 
upon  the  page,  and  below  it  the  words  of  the 
motto,  "Christ  for  the  world." 


147 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 


C^HAPTEE    IX 
THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

IT  is  a  point  that  has  been  lovingly  inscribed  in 
the  history  of  South  Dakota  that  the  move- 
ment for  statehood,  that  great  patriotic  strug- 
gle to  gain  the  people's  liberties,  had  its  virtual 
origin  at  a  certain  Thanksgiving  dinner,  where 
were  assembled  a  group  of  men  who  were  des- 
tined to  become  the  inspirers  and  leaders  of  that 
movement.  It  occurred  at  Yankton,  in  the  year 
1879,  at  the  home  of  the  Rev.  Stewart  Sheldon, 
brother-in-law  of  Joseph  Ward.  The  guests  there 
assembled  were  Dr.  Ward,  the  Hon.  William  A. 
Howard,  governor  of  the  Territory,  Gen.  Hugh  J. 
Campbell,  United  States  Attorney  for  Dakota, 
Gen.  W.  H.  H.  Beadle,  Territorial  Superintendent 
of  Public  Instruction,  Mr.  E.  P.  Wilcox,  Mr.  H.  H. 
Smith,  and  perhaps  others.  They  were  a  group  of 
congenial  friends,  and  all  of  them,  it  may  be  re- 
marked, members  of  Dr.  Ward's  church.  The 
occasion  was  one  after  his  own  heart,  like  many 
another  gathering  about  the  hospitable  board  in 
his  own  home,  where  friendly  talk  was  turned 
upon  some  proposal  of  large  importance.  At 
that  memorable  observance  of  the  Pilgrim  day  of 
Thanksgiving,  the  plans  were  discussed  and  the 
initial  steps  resolved  upon  which  resulted  in  the 

151 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

admission  of  South  Dakota  into  the  Union,  and 
the  victory  of  those  important  issues  which 
were  involved  in  the  statehood  movement. 

In  order  to  understand  the  course  of  events 
thus  initiated,  in  which  Dr.  Ward  played  so  im- 
portant a  part,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
there  were  two  great  issues  associated  from  first 
to  last  with  the  cause  of  securing  admission  into 
the  Union.  The  first  was  the  division  of  the  Ter- 
ritory into  two  states;  and  the  second,  the  enact- 
ment in  the  constitution  of  the  proposed  state  of 
South  Dakota  of  a  certain  measure  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  public  school  lands  as  set  apart  by 
the  Federal  Government  for  the  endowment  of 
public  education  in  newly-created  states.  These 
issues.  Division  and  the  School  Lands,  in  this 
movement  inaugurated  by  Dr.  Ward  and  his  asso- 
ciates, were  inseparably  bound  up  with  admis- 
sion itself.  On  a  different  footing  the  cause  of 
constitutional  prohibition  was  also  promoted 
along  with  the  statehood  effort,  and  was  finally 
successful. 

The  opposition  to  the  admission  of  Dakota  into 
the  Union  was  an  instance  of  the  familiar  evil  of 
partisan  advantage  set  over  against  popu- 
lar rights.  Dakota  was  republican  in  politics,  and 
Congress  was  in  control  of  the  Democratic  party. 
In  this  is  implied  no  disparagement  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party;  had  the  condition  been  reversed,  a 
democratic  territory  seeking  admission  from  the 
Republican  party  in  power,  the  opposition  would 
probably  have  been  the  sau\e.  This  partisan 
opposition  was  naturally  all  the  more  determined 

152 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

against  the  division  of  the  Territory  and  the 
admission  of  two  republican  states.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  question  of  division  became  a 
great  vital  issue  in  the  whole  movement.  Had 
the  people  of  the  South  been  willing  to  have  the 
Territory  come  into  the  Union  as  one  state,  the 
struggle  for  admission  might  not  have  been  pro- 
longed until  1889,  as  was  the  case.  But  the  people 
of  Southern  Dakota,  under  the  influence  of  the 
movement  now  started,  became  so  thoroughly 
aroused  and  determined  in  their  demand  for  sep- 
arate statehood  that  admission  without  division 
would  certainly  have  been  refused  even  to  this 
day. 

It  may  readily  be  seen  why  the  movement  for 
statehood  had  its  origin  and  chief  strength  in  the 
south,  and  why  that  portion  of  the  Territory  so 
strongly  demanded  admission  as  a  separate  state. 
The  south,  or  more  particularly  the  southeast  cor- 
ner of  the  Territory,  was  the  region  of  earliest  set- 
tlement and  largest  population.  The  people  of 
that  part  inherited  the  main  traditions  of  pioneer 
life  and  struggle  in  Dakota,  and  they  had  become 
united  by  ties  of  political,  educational,  and  reli- 
gious organization  which  were  the  growth  of 
many  years.  The  chief  industry  of  the  southeast- 
ern section  was  small  farming  and  stock  raising. 
This  southeast  corner  was  virtually  the  original 
"Dakota,"  and  in  relation  to  it  the  other  sections 
of  the  Territory  were  recent,  isolated,  and  differ- 
ent in  character.  The  Black  Hills  to  the  West, 
which  had  been  but  newly  settled  in  the  gold-rush 
of  '77,  was  dominated  by  the  mining  interest  and 

153 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

its  population  of  a  particularly  unstable  and  ad- 
venturous class;  the  northern  region,  developed 
by  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway,  was  the  land  of 
bonanza  wheat  farming  carried  on  by  big  land 
owners,  an  agricultural  counti*y  of  a  different  type 
from  the  south.  The  Black  Hills,  although  con- 
sidered for  a  time  as  a  possible  third  division  of 
the  Territory,  eventually  joined  hands  with  the 
southeast,  thus  forming  of  the  entire  portion 
south  of  the  46th  parallel  the  new  state  of  South 
Dakota.  It  was  in  the  southeast,  then,  that  the 
idea  of  statehood  naturally  arose,  and  with  it  the 
idea  of  division.  Yankton,  the  old  territorial  cap- 
ital, birthplace  of  the  movement  and  source  of 
chief  influence  from  beginning  to  end,  has  been 
aptly  called  "the  cradle  of  Dakota's  liberties." 

Dr.  Ward,  it  might  be  thought,  would  have  his 
hands  full  in  the  building  of  a  college,  without 
giving  time  and  strength  to  general  public  inter- 
ests. But  this  cause  of  the  people's  liberties  ap- 
pealed powerfully  to  his  patriotism,  and  he  saw 
largely  involved  in  it  those  interests  of  religion 
and  education  to  which  he  had  set  his  hand.  As 
missionary  and  educator  the  vision  of  the  future 
state  had  inspired  his  thinking  and  planning  from 
the  first.  He  had  come  to  feel  most  keenly  the  con- 
dition of  dependence  in  territorial  citizenship; 
and  to  believe  that  the  territorial  system  of  the 
United  States  was  thoroughly  wrong  in  principle, 
and  had  been  developed  and  maintained  largely 
as  a  means  of  rewarding  partisan  workers  with 
political  office.  He  wrote  and  published  a  strong 
argument  on  the  proposition  that  "To  hold  any 

154 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

part  of  our  country  as  a  Territory,  is  a  violation 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  growth,  is 
contrary  to  our  history,  and  is  dangerous  to  our 
national  life."*  Moreover  Dr.  Ward  was  a  strong 
believer  in  Division.  He  was  closely  identified 
with  the  history  and  spirit  of  the  south,  which 
so  naturally  looked  toward  separate  state- 
hood. But,  furthermore,  he  believed  in  the 
smaller  state  as  a  matter  of  principle.  "He  was 
emphatically  a  people's  man,"  as  his  friend  Judge 
Campbell  said  of  him,  "favoring  everything  that 
looked  toward  honest,  free  and  fair  government. 
He  was  deeply  versed  in  New  England  polity,  and 
was  a  profound  believer  in  the  fundamental  and 
most  fruitful  principle  of  New  England  political 
institutions,  local  self-government;  small  com- 
munities, such  as  the  township,  as  the  unit  of 
political  administration  and  legislation,  a  numer- 
ous representative  bod}-,  and  small  states.  He  be- 
lieved in  small  states  for  the  reason  that  they 
brought  the  government  closer  to  the  people,  were 
more  economical,  and  less  easily  bought  and  con- 
trolled by  corrupt  means  than  large  states.  Hence 
he  earnestly  favored  the  division  of  this  large 
territory  into  two  states."  t 

The  other  chief  issue  connected  with  the  state- 
hood movement  in  the  plans  now  formed,  the 
safeguarding  of  the  school  lands  under  the  consti- 
tution of  the  proposed  state,  was  naturally  a  vital 
interest  in  the    mind  of    Dr.    Ward.     This    im- 

*"The  Territorial  System  of  the  United  States."  by  Joseph 
Ward.     "Andover  Review,"  July,  1888. 

fMemorial  Number  of  "The  Yankton  Student." 

155 


JOSEPH  WAKD  OF  DAKOTA 

mensely  valuable  endowment,  consisting  of  one- 
eighteenth  of  the  public  domain  within  newly- 
admitted  states,  as  set  apart  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment for  the  support  of  public  schools*  had 
already  suffered  damage  by  trespass,  and  stood 
in  a  far  greater  danger  of  waste  and  loss  through 
fraud  or  premature  disposal  when  it  should  pass 
into  the  control  of  the  new  state.  Dr.  Ward, 
who,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  the  leader  of  the 
educational  movement  in  the  Territory  since  the 
early  years  of  his  residence  in  Dakota,  had  long 
before  discussed  with  territorial  officers  this  par- 
ticular question  of  the  protection  of  the  school 
lands,  having  before  his  mind  the  vision  of  a  mag- 
nificently endowed  system  of  public  education  for 
the  future  state.  In  the  statehood  movement,  as 
now  set  on  foot.  Gen.  W.  H.  H.  Beadle,  at  that 
time  Territorial  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion, brought  forward  and  advocated  with  great 
vigor  throughout  the  Territory  the  cause  of  the 
school  lands,  centering  about  the  particular  pro- 
vision that  the  constitution  of  the  future  state 
should  forever  forbid  the  sale  of  any  public  school 
lands  at  less  than  ten  dollars  an  acre.  Gen.  Beadle 
advanced  a  strong  argument  from  the  results  of 
an  investigation  he  had  made  of  the  history 
of  school  lands  in  other  states, showing  a  record  of 
shameful  loss  and  fraud  in  the  management 
of  those  lands.  Of  Dr.  Ward's  early  and  hearty 
espousal  of  the  school  land  measure  Gen.  Beadle 

*In  the  case  of  Dakota  this  land  set  apart  for  the  benefit 
of  common  schools,  not  counting  that  reserved  for  normal 
schools  and  university,  was  an  area  larger  than  the  entire 
state  of  Massachusetts. 

156 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

gives  ample  testimony  in  his  "Memoirs."  "Dr. 
Ward,''  he  says,  "was  my  first  convert,  if  indeed 
he  required  conviction  at  all  and  had  not  always 
thought  substantially  the  same  way."  And  again 
he  makes  particular  assertion,  in  regard  to  start- 
ing that  movement,  that  Dr.  Ward  was  an  early 
supporter  of  the  school  laud  plan  long  before  the 
time  when  it  was  taken  up  along  with  the  general 
plan  for  statehood  at  the  Thanksgiving  dinner  in 
1879. 

Such,  then,  was  the  general  situation  with 
regard  to  statehood,  and  to  the  great  issues  of 
Division  and  the  School  Lands  as  discussed  at 
that  memorable  Thanksgiving  dinner.  On  that 
occasion.  Judge  Campbell,  who  became  the  great 
legal  mind  of  the  statehood  movement,  proposed 
the  constitutional  theory  which  was  thenceforth, 
under  his  championship,  to  become  the  fighting- 
basis  for  the  struggle  for  admission,  to  wit,  that 
according  to  ordinances  of  Congress  relating  to 
the  rights  of  inhabitants  of  newly-acquired  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,  and  the  precedents  of 
the  action  of  other  territories,  notably  Michigan, 
in  establishing  state  government,  the  people  of 
Dakota  had  the  right  and  the  power  of  taking  the 
initiative  in  the  matter  of  forming  a  state  govern- 
ment, without  waiting  for  the  passage  of  an  en- 
abling act  by  Congress;  and  that  the  people  of 
southern  Dakota  could,  by  united  popular  action, 
separate  at  a  stroke  the  councils  of  the  north  and 
the  south,  destroy  the  power  of  the  political  com- 
bination which  opposed  division,  and  begin  a  sep- 
arate state  organization. 

157 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

Here,  it  was  agreed,  was  the  ground  for  a  peo- 
ple's movement.  What  had  been  done  in  the  in- 
terests of  statehood  hitherto  had  been  through 
ordinary-  political  channels,  memorials  to  Con- 
gress by  the  territorial  legislature,  and  attempts 
by  the  territorial  delegates  in  Congress  to  secure 
the  passage  of  an  enabling  act,  authorizing  the 
institution  of  a  state  government — steadily  op- 
posed as  we  have  seen  by  the  Democratic  party  in 
power.  The  plan  now  formed  hj  Dr.  Ward  and 
his  associates  was  to  organize  a  coherent  and 
powerful  body  of  pledged  supporters  to  the  Divi- 
sion and  Statehood  cause,  through  which  public 
opinion  in  southern  Dakota  could  be  aroused  and 
united  in  the  direction  of  independent  action. 
The  first  step  taken  was  the  formation  of  a  league 
of  Statehood  Clubs  in  a  number  of  communities 
in  the  southern  half  of  the  Territory-,  whose  busi- 
ness it  was  to  engage  public  interest  in  the  move- 
ment for  Division  and  Statehood,  and  to  awaken 
discussion  of  various  important  issues,  including 
prohibition,  and  above  all  the  great  question  of 
the  school  lands,  related  to  the  forming  of  the 
constitution  of  the  future  state.  The  idea  of 
this  effort  was  that  the  people  themselves,  not 
Congress,  nor  the  politicians,  should  say  what 
kind  of  constitution  they  would  have. 

This  movement  of  the  Statehood  Clubs,  ini- 
tiated by  Dr.  Ward  and  liis  co-workers,  was  the 
definite  beginning  of  the  struggle  for  statehood, 
and  the  organization  developing  from  them, 
known  as  the  Citizens'  Constitutional  Association, 
remained  the  core  and  chief  motive  power  in  all 

158 


THE  STKUGGLE  FOK  STATEHOOD 

that  followed  after.  Dr.  Ward  with  his  acquaint- 
ance and  standing  throughout  the  Territory  was 
undoubtedly  the  largest  single  influence  in  form- 
ing and  developing  that  organization.  General 
Beadle  declares  that  the  whole  moral  force  of  the 
people  was  with  the  Citizens'  Constitutional  Asso- 
ciation, and  pronounces  it  "the  most  meritorious 
non-partisan  public  movement  ever  begun  in  the 
West,''  pointing  out  that  the  measures  promoted 
under  that  organization  "powerfully  influenced 
the  constitutions  of  Montana,  Washington,  Idaho, 
and  Wyoming,  and  later  Utah,  especially  upon 
the  subjects  of  education  and  the  school  lands, 
for  the  principles  which  we  urged  with  so 
much  vigor  in  South  Dakota  were  afterwards 
incorporated  in  the  enabling  acts  of  all  those 
states." 

Governor  Howard,  of  that  Thanksgiving  group, 
the  good  governor,  "without  fear  and  without 
reproach,"  did  not  live  to  see  the  development  of 
these  plans,  to  the  initiation  of  which  he  gave  his 
earnest  and  able  support.  Dr.  Ward,  General 
Beadle,  and  Judge  Campbell  were  leading  figures 
in  the  struggle  from  that  time  on.  The  move- 
ment in  the  course  of  time  drew  to  itself  nearly 
all  the  ablest  men  of  the  Territory,  many  of  whom 
became  conspicuous  in  the  cause,  the  more  so  in 
its  later  stages.  But  it  remained  the  people's 
cause,  and  the  unique  relation  of  these  three  men, 
jointly  and  severally  to  the  movement,  is  duly 
recognized  in  the  history  of  the  State,  and  is 
deserving  of  honor  by  all  South  Dakotans. 

The  movement  of  the  local  clubs,  under  the  Cit- 
159 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

izens'  Constitutional  Association,  made  but  slow 
progress  for  the  first  two  or  three  years.  Being 
an  independent  people's  movement,  most  of  the 
active  politicians  gave  it  the  cold  shoulder,  and 
the  press  of  the  Territory  deprecated  or  ignored 
it.  The  strong  sentiment  for  prohibition  which 
the  movement  carried  with  it  inevitably  tended 
to  handicap  the  broader  objects  in  view.  More- 
over, the  strenuous  position  taken  on  the  question 
of  the  school  lands  met  with  strong  opposition  in 
certain  quarters.  Nevertheless  Dr.  Ward  and  his 
fellow-promoters  persisted  in  their  efforts,  and 
gradually  gained  support  for  the  cause  among 
the  people.  It  was  under  their  organization,  the 
Citizens'  Constitutional  Association,  that  the  first 
of  the  series  of  statehood  conventions  was  assem- 
bled, at  Canton,  June  21,  1882.  A  bill  for  the 
passage  of  an  enabling  act  was  at  that  time  pend- 
ing in  Congress,  and  the  purpose  of  this  conven- 
tion, as  expressed  in  the  call  issued  by  the  execu- 
tive committee,  was  to  focus  general  attention 
upon  measures  to  be  considered  in  forming  the 
future  constitution.  Ten  counties  only  were  rep- 
resented in  this  initial  assembling  of  the  people, 
by  delegates  elected  under  the  auspices  of  the 
local  clubs.  Not  much  attention  was  paid  to  it  in 
the  newspapers.  The  report  of  it  in  the  leading 
daily  of  the  Territory*  was  patronizing  and  sar- 
castic in  tone,  remarking  among  other  things 
upon  the  conspicuous  proportion  of  ministers  in 
attendance,  the  evident  moral  bent  of  the  meet- 
ing, and  the  fact  of  a  coincident  convention  of  the 

*"The  Sioux  Falls  Press." 

160 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

W.  C.  T.  IT.*  Tlie  convention  was  under  the  ban  of 
the  politicians.  It  was  only  in  the  light  of  sub- 
sequent events,  and  the  persistence  and  spread  of 
the  popular  sentiment  that  was  back  of  it,  that 
its  historic  importance  was  realized.  It  was  out 
of  this  first  general  assembly  of  the  people  that 
the  subsequent  statehood  and  constitutional  con- 
ventions grew  in  logical  succession,  and  the  spirit 
of  this  first  gathering  as  an  independent,  popular, 
and  moral  movement  was  largely  infused  into  all 
that  followed  it. 

Dr.  Ward  was  the  prime  mover  in  this  first 
convention,  and  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Resolutions,  of  which  he  was  chairman,  written 
manifestly  by  his  own  hand,  set  forth  the  purpose 
and  significance  of  the  convention  in  language 
which  has  the  ring  of  prophecy. 

"The  gathering  is  the  more  notable,"  he  says, 
"because  the  call  did  not  come  from  any  well- 
known  or  long  standing  organization.  Nor  did 
the  delegates  come  with  any  hope  of  political  ad- 
vantage. On  the  contrary  those  who  came  had 
to  do  so  almost  in  defiance  of  party  rules  and  in 
many  instances  with  a  threat  hanging  over  them 
of  being  read  out  of  the  party  in  case  they  did 
attend.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  find  a  precedent  in  our 
national  history  for  such  a  gathering.  We  had 
no  bitter  wrongs  to  rehearse;  we  had  no  griefs 
to  tell;  we  were  not  driven  to  come  together  by 
any  outside  pressure.  It  was  simply  a  gathering 
of  the  people  to  shape  by  friendly  counselling 
together,  the  form  of  the  State  government  under 

**'The  Sioux  Falls  Press." 

161 


JOSEPH    WARD  Ol^    DAKOTA 

which  we  are  to  live  and  our  children  are  to  be 
born.  It  is  not  boasting-  to  say  that  in  subse- 
quent generations  men  will  quote  the  work  of 
to-day  as  similar  to  that  done  by  the  Pilgrims  in 
the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  when  they  put  their 
names  to  the  compact  which  was  afterwards  ex- 
panded into  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts. 
For  did  not  we  lay  the  foundation  of  the  State 
when  we  put  upon  record  the  careful  conviction 
of  194  men,  coming  from  both  great  political 
parties,  from  various  ranks  of  society  and  from 
all  parts  of  the  State,  as  to  what  in  their  opinion 
should  be  the  shape  of  the  Constitution?  It  is 
not  a  small  thing  to  hear  the  voice  of  the  people 
as  thus  given — telling  that  they  are  awake  to 
the  value  of  our  future  school  fund ;  that  they  are 
on  their  guard  against  the  encroachment  of 
monopolies;  that  they  are  fully  persuaded  that 
extravagant  expenditure  and  consequent  high 
taxation  and  ruinous  indebtedness  of  state  and 
municipality,  can  and  shall  be  avoided;  that  the 
liquor  traffic  and  its  attendant  evils  is  a  subject 
for  constitutional  restraint.  In  short  the  whole 
work  of  the  convention  has  demonstrated  as  never 
before  that  the  people  are  sovereign;  that  political 
parties  are  only  convenient  forms  for  carrying 
out  the  wishes  of  the  people;  that  the  people  are 
at  any  time  stronger  than  any  and  all  parties; 
that  if  occasion  arise  they  know  perfectly  how  to 
act  and  are  perfectly  ready  to  act  for  themselves 
— not  under  the  name  of  any  party,  but  simply  as 
the  people." 

That  splendid  utterance  may  fitly  stand  in  the 
162 


THE.   STRUGGLE    FOK    STATEHOOD 

annals  of  South  Dakota  as  the  declaration  of 
the  people's  independence  and  the  prolog  to  that 
movement  which  really  made  the  constitution  and 
the  State. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  School  Lands 
and  School  Funds  embodied  fully  the  provisions 
for  safeguardino-  that  trust,  including  the  ten- 
dollar-an-acre  clause,  as  framed  by  General 
Beadle,  and  as  steadily  advocated  by  him  in  pub- 
lic addresses,  newspaper  articles,  and  other 
means  of  propaganda  throughout  the  state. 

Dr.  Ward  was  chairman  also  of  the  Committee 
on  Permanent  League  or  Organization,  which  laid 
the  plan  of  The  Dakota  Citizens'  League,  to  de- 
velop and  extend  throughout  the  state  the  work 
that  had  hitherto  been  carried  on  by  the  original 
"local  clubs,"  and  to  endeavor  to  unite  the  people 
of  the  state  in  support  of  the  statehood  movement 
as  now  begun,  and  of  those  provisions  in  the 
future  constitution  which  the  Canton  convention 
had  declared  for.  The  statement  of  the  purposes 
of  the  Dakota  Citizens'  League  as  prepared  by 
this  committee  concludes  as  follows:  "Finally, 
people  of  Dakota,  we  say  to  you,  remember  that 
nothing  that  is  good  grows  of  itself.  Good  con- 
stitutions are  no  exception  to  this  rule — you  can- 
not expect  a  good  constitution  to  be  framed  unless 
you,  yourselves,  work  to  make  it  good.  What 
we  want  is  a  constitution  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  politicians.  If 
the  people  get  such  a  constitution  the  people 
themselves  must  make  it.  They  cannot  with 
safety  leave  this  work  to  others.     Any  plan  which 

163 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

will  interest  the  whole  people  in  making  their 
constitution  will  secure  a  good  constitution."  * 

The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Dakota  Cit- 
izens' League,  of  which  Dr.  Ward  was  a  member, 
took  steps  at  once  looking  toward  the  formation 
of  state  government.  To  that  end  they  pre- 
pared a  bill  for  a  Constitutional  Convention  for 
the  meeting  of  the  legislature  the  following  win- 
ter. The  Committee  promoted  the  passage  of 
the  bill  through  the  legislature,  but  the  measure 
was  then  killed  by  the  veto  of  Governor  Ordway. 
If  impulse  to  united  action  had  been  lacking 
before  it  took  hold  of  the  movement  now.  That 
action  on  the  part  of  the  governor  "set  the 
prairies  aflame,"  and  aroused  public  sentiment 
against  carpet-bag  government  and  in  favor  of 
statehood  as  never  before.  That  legislature,  as 
led  by  Governor  Ordway,  created  territorial  insti- 
tutions that  were  not  needed,  passed  extravagant 
appropriations,  and  adopted  an  iniquitous  scheme 
of  capital  removal,  "putting  the  territorial  cap- 
ital on  wheels  to  be  hawked  over  the  territory 
and  knocked  off  to  the  highest  bidder."  At  that 
hour  of  universal  indignation,  a  time  which  doubt- 
less marked  the  height  of  corruption  in  territorial 
politics,  the  Dakota  Citizens'  League,  as  the  one 
existing  organization  which  represented  the  peo- 
ple of  the  state,  was  called  into  prominent  action. 
The    Executive    Committee,     probably    at    Dr. 

*This  passage  from  the  report  of  Dr.  Ward's  committee 
does  not  seem  to  the  writer  to  be  in  the  style  of  Dr.  Ward, 
although  the  thought  is  exactly  his  own.  The  extract  from 
the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  as  quoted  a  little 
above,  is  unmistakably  the  language  of  Dr.  W^ard. 

164 


THE  STKUGGLE  FOK  STATEHOOD 

Ward's  proposal,  issued  a  call  for  a  Statehood 
Convention  to  be  held  at  Huron,  June  19,  1883, 
to  prepare  at  once  for  the  formation  of  a  consti- 
tution, and  to  declare  to  Congress  the  right  of  the 
people  to  act  for  themselves  in  preparing  for 
statehood,  without  waiting  for  an  enabling  act 
of  Congress  to  bestow  the  condition  of  statehood 
upon  them. 

One  notable  provision  of  the  Committee's  call 
for  the  Huron  Convention  was  that  the  question 
of  Prohibition,  which  had  been  prominent  in  the 
discussions  at  Canton,  should  be  relegated  to 
future  and  separate  action,  in  order  not  to  hand- 
icap the  main  purpose  of  securing  statehood.  Dr. 
Ward  was  back  of  this  provision,  and,  earnest 
Prohibitionist  though  he  was,  he  consistently, 
throughout  the  statehood  movement,  opposed  the 
desire  of  zealous  temperance  workers  of  the  state 
to  force  the  question  of  Constitutional  Prohibi- 
tion as  an  issue  bound  up  with  Statehood  itself. 
His  policy  was  to  win  all  the  forces  of  the  state 
to  the  one  cause  of  statehood,  reserving  the  ques- 
tion of  Prohibition  for  separate  action. 

The  occasion  was  ripe,  now  that  the  call  for 
the  Huron  Convention  had  been  issued,  for  vigor- 
ously promoting  Judge  Campbell's  doctrine  of 
the  right  of  the  people  to  independent  action  in 
the  forming  of  the  State.  At  the  formal  request 
of  Dr.  Ward  and  many  statehood  promoters  of 
Yankton,  Judge  Campbell  now  prepared  a  pam- 
phlet fully  setting  forth  his  views,  which  was 
widely  circulated  throughout  the  proposed  state. 
From  this  time  on  the  famous  "We  are  a  State" 

165 


JOSEPH  WAKD  OF  DAKOTA 

idea  profoundly  influenced  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple everywhere,  and  it  became  the  accepted 
principle  of  action  at  the  Huron  Convention 
and  the  constitutional  conventions  which  fol- 
loAved  it. 

The  Huron  Convention,  held  June  19,  1883, 
made  manifest  the  great  momentum  which  the 
Statehood  Movement  had  now  gained.  It  was  a 
large  and  dignified  gathering  of  the  most  promi- 
nent men  in  the  state,  in  which  nearly  all  the 
counties  w^ere  represented.  It  maintained  the 
non-partisan  and  purely  patriotic  character  of 
the  whole  course  of  effort  that  led  up  to  it  and  its 
deliberate  and  statesmanlike  proceedings  were 
notable  proof  of  the  ability  of  the  people  of  South 
Dakota  to  assume  the  function  of  self-government. 
The  Convention  solemnly  declared  the  right  of 
the  people  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  the  inviolable  guarantees  of  treaties, 
ordinances  and  laws  of  Congress,  to  proceed  in 
the  formation  of  a  new^  state,  and  framed  a  very 
complete  and  careful  ordinance  providing  for  a 
constitutional  convention  and  the  formation  and 
adoption  of  a  state  constitution.  The  constitu- 
tional convention  was  appointed  to  be  held  at 
Sioux  Falls,  on  the  4th  of  the  following  Septem- 
ber, and  exact  provisions  were  made  for  the  ap- 
portionment and  election  of  delegates,  together 
with  all  necessary  particulars  according  to  full 
form  of  law.  Dr.  Ward  at  the  Huron  ConA'ention 
was  chairman  of  the  Yankton  County  delegation, 
in  this  as  in  all  the  conventions  the  most  influen- 
tial of  the  county  delegations.    He  was  a  member 

166 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  and  first  vice- 
president  of  the  Convention. 

The  Sioux  Falls  Constitutional  Convention,  of 
September  4,  1883,  was  formed  as  we  have  seen 
by  direct  authority  of  the  people,  independent  of 
act  of  legislature,  or  enabling  act  of  Congress. 
This  convention  framed  a  worthy  organic  law  for 
the  future  state.  It  embraced  excellent  provi- 
sions against  graft  and  corporate  corruption,  for 
the  control  of  railroads  and  of  state  and  munici- 
pal indebtedness,  along  the  line  of  those  ideas 
which  Dr.  Ward  and  the  original  promoters  of 
the  Statehood  Movement  had  brought  into  gen- 
eral discussion  through  the  Dakota  Citizens' 
League.  In  this  convention  Dr.  Ward,  as  mem- 
ber of  the  Committee  on  Education  and  School 
Lands,  was  largely  instrumental  in  securing  the 
enactment  of  the  splendid  school  land  law,  to 
which  he  had  given  all  the  strength  of  his  influ- 
ence from  its  inception,  which  had  been  endorsed 
by  the  Dakota  Citizens'  League,  and  which  Gen- 
eral Beadle  had  been  advocating  throughout  the 
State  since  the  beginning  of  the  Statehood  Move- 
ment. 

This  constitution  of  1883  was  adopted  by  a  vote 
of  the  people  in  November  of  that  year.  But 
Congress  declined  to  recognize  the  proceeding  in 
any  way,  and  the  matter  for  the  present  was 
dropped. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  legislature  of  1885  the 
Statehood  men  were  successful  in  securing  the 
passage  of  an  act  authorizing  a  constitutional 
convention,  which  effort  had    failed    two    years 

167 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

before  through  Governor  Ordway's  infamous  veto. 
Dr.  Ward's  name  stands  at  the  head  of  the  memo- 
rial presented  to  that  legislature  by  a  group  of 
leading  citizens  of  Yankton  County,  praying  for 
the  passage  of  that  act.  The  memorial  renews 
the  irrefutable  arguments  of  the  right  of  the  peo- 
ple to  proceed  in  the  formation  of  a  state  govern- 
ment without  an  enabling  act  of  Congress.  It 
also  cites  the  fact  that  at  that  time  the  long- 
sought  enabling  act,  which  had  passed  the  senate 
but  a  few  days  previously,  "lies  buried  in  the 
House  where  it  will  never  be  considered,"  and 
declares  that  determined  action  at  this  time  "will 
be  backed  by  the  public  sentiment  of  the  entire 

Northwest  without   regard   to    part}' 

The  issue  will  be  so  plainly  one  of  justice  against 
injustice,  of  popular  rights  against  partisan  ad- 
vantage, that  the  Democrats  will  be  constrained 
to  admit  Dakota  on  her  application,  or  at  least 
to  pass  the  necessary  enabling  act."  The  pur- 
pose is  here  expressed  in  the  memorial  to  the 
legislature  of  pressing  the  question  of  Dakota's 
admission  into  national  politics.  But  the  Demo- 
cratic party  continued  to  resist  the  demand  of 
the  Dakotans,  until  in  the  presidential  election  of 
1888  the  Republican  party  made  the  question  an 
issue  of  the  national  campaign,  in  which  the 
Democrats    went  down  to  defeat. 

Granting  the  prayer  of  the  memorialists,  this 
legislature  of  1885,  passed  an  act  authorizing  a 
Constitutional  Convention  to  be  held  at  Sioux 
Falls,  September  8,  of  that  year.  The  popular 
movement  now  at  last  had  the  sanction  of  terri- 

168 


THE  STKUGGl.E  FOK  STATEHOOD 

torial  law,  although  the  convention  proceeded 
still  without  congressional  enabling  act.  In 
determining  the  choice  of  delegates  to  this,  as  to 
the  earlier  conventions,  the  original  popular 
organization,  in  which  Dr.  Ward  had  been  the 
chief  influence  from  the  beginning,  was  largely 
influential,  and  for  that  reason  the  Convention 
was  closely  responsive  to  the  people's  will  in  all 
its  action.  The  constitution  framed  by  this  con- 
vention was  the  one  which  ultimately  was 
adopted  as  the  constitution  of  the  State  of  South 
Dakota.  It  followed  the  constitution  of  1883  in 
the  main,  with  elaboration  of  various  details  and 
strengthening  of  important  safeguards.  While 
the  calling  of  this  convention,  independently  of 
an  enabling  act  of  Congress,  had  been  in  accord 
with  the  principle  which  Judge  Campbell  had  so 
completely  established  in  the  people's  minds,  the 
convention,  by  majority  vote,  declined  to  go  the 
full  length  of  the  original  "We  are  a  State" 
plan  of  action,  being  content  to  frame  a  con- 
stitution, provide  for  the  election  of  a  full  set 
of  state  officers,  but  there  to  pause,  awaiting 
the  authorization  of  Congress  before  setting 
the  machiners^  of  state  government  in  actual 
operation. 

Dr.  Ward,  as  member  of  the  Committee  on  Edu- 
cation and  School  Lands,  was  powerfully  influ- 
ential in  securing  the  passage  of  the  school  land 
law,  as  drafted  by  General  Beadle,  which  had 
been  kept  to  the  front  as  a  great  issue  in  all  the 
Statehood  Movement.  General  Beadle,  who, 
although  not  a  member  of  the  convention,  was 

169 


JOSEPH  WAKD  OF  DAKOTA 

present  at  that  gathering  and  sat  with  the  Com- 
mittee on  Education  and  School  Lands  as  its 
secretary,  has  related  to  the  writer  the  really 
critical  struggle  by  which  that  splendid  measure 
was  finally  passed  in  the  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion. The  crucial  point  in  the  measure  was  the 
clause  forever  prohibiting  the  sale  of  any  public 
school  lands  at  less  than  ten  dollars  an  acre,  to 
which  there  had  been  strong  opposition  from  the 
first.  There  were  rumors  of  a  speculative  syn- 
dicate that  hoped  to  secure  possession  of  school 
lands  at  a  low  figure.  Pettigrew,  Territorial  dele- 
gate to  Congress,  urged  two  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  an  acre  as  high  enough,  and  set  down  that 
figure  in  the  enabling  act  which  he  was  seeking 
to  have  passed  at  Washington.  There  was  un- 
questionable need  of  early  help  from  the  pro- 
ceeds of  these  lands  for  the  upbuilding  of  the 
])ublic  schools  in  the  new  state,  and  many  believed 
that  so  high  a  prohibition  as  ten  dollars  an  acre 
would  defer  too  long  that  help.  In  winning  the 
victory  for  the  measure  in  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention, the  real  battle  was  fought,  according  to 
General  Beadle,  in  the  Committee  itself.  The  sit- 
uation was  such  in  the  Convention  that  the  pas- 
sage of  the  measure  could  be  assured  only  upon  a 
unanimous  report  of  the  Committee.  Yet  the 
Committee  at  first  was  by  no  means  agreed  in 
favor  of  the  measure.  It  was  due  largely  to  the 
work  of  Dr.  Ward  as  a  member  of  the  Committee, 
and  particularly  to  what  General  Beadle  praises 
as  his  "power  of  harmonizing  men,"  that  the  Com- 
mittee at  length  reported  unanimously  in  favor 

170 


THE    STPJJGGLE    FOR   STATEHOOD 

of  the  measure,  whereby  it  was  successfully  car- 
ried in  the  Convention. 

In  this  Convention  Dr.  Ward  was  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Arrangement  and  Phraseology 
of  the  Constitution.  He  was  member  also  of  the 
Committee  on  Seal  and  Coat  of  Arms,  and  to  him 
we  owe  the  splendid  Puritan  motto  of  the  State, 
"Under  God  the  People  Kule."  *  Jnst  as  the  Col- 
lege motto,  "Christ  for  the  World,"  represents 
Dr.  Ward's  ideal  of  education,  so  the  motto  of  the 
State,  "Under  God  the  People  Rule,"  represents 
hjs  ideal  of  democracy.  The  legend  is  significant 
also  as  expressing  the  spirit  of  that  people's  move- 
ment which  made  the  State,  a  movement  notably 
religious  in  temper,  and  powerfully  inspired  by 
belief  in  the  people's  rights. 

The  constitution  formed  by  the  Sioux  Falls  Con- 
vention of  1885  became  eventually  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  state  of  South  Dakota.  But  a 
struggle  of  four  more  years  ensued  before  admis- 
sion was  actually  gained.  Congress  continued 
to  set  its  face  against  the  claim  of  South  Dakota, 
and  the  conservative  element  within  the  State 
was  still  unwilling  to  follow  Judge  Campbell's 
program  to  the  point  of  raising  the  practical  issue 
with  Congress  by  actually  setting  state  govern- 
ment in  operation  as    Tennessee    and    Michigan 

*A  statement  emanating  from  S.  T.  Clover  has  been  widely 
published  to  the  effect  that  this  motto  as  originally  proposed 
by  Dr.  Ward  took  a  different  form,  which  he  was  induced 
to  alter.  This  statement  is  disproved  by  the  original  draft 
of  Dr.  Ward's  report,  in  his  own  handwriting,  now  in  the 
possession  of  the  Department  of  History. — Note  hy  Eon.  Doane 
R/)binson,  Serretan/  of  the  f^onth  Dakota  State  Dejmi-tment  of 
History. 

171 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

had  done.  Nevertheless  it  was  thought  to  be 
due  to  the  persistence  of  the  friends  of  positive 
action,  with  whom  Dr.  Ward  sided,  and  the 
strong  and  growing  sentiment  throughout  the 
State  in  favor  of  such  action,  that  opposition  to 
South  Dakota's  admission  was  at  length  with- 
drawn, at  the  close  of  the  session  of  1888-9. 
The  long-sought  enabling  act,  as  then  passed,  pro- 
vided for  a  Constitutional  Convention  to  be  held 
July  4  of  that  year  which  should  merely  amend 
and  resubmit  to  the  people  of  the  State  the  con- 
stitution which  had  been  adopted  in  1885,  thereby 
giving  tardy  and  partial  acknowledgment  of  the 
legality  of  that  action.  The  people  approved  the 
constitution  at  an  election  held  October  1,  and 
on  November  2,  1889,  President  Harrison  issued 
his  proclamation  admitting  North  and  South  Da- 
kota as  separate  states  into  the  Union. 

The  important  part  which  Joseph  Ward  played 
in  the  great  Struggle  for  Statehood  is  a  splendid 
example  of  pure  patriotism.  He  largely  guided 
that  movement  from  first  to  last,  yet  did  not  seek 
distinction  for  himself  in  the  Statehood  Conven- 
tions, and  had  no  ambition  for  public  office  in 
the  future  state.  The  fact  that  he  was  elected 
by  Yankton  County  as  delegate  to  every  one  of 
the  Statehood  and  Constitutional  Conventions, 
together  with  the  positions  of  honor  which  he  did 
hold  in  those  gatherings,  by  no  means  indicates 
the  degree  of  his  leadership  in  them.  Judge 
Bartless  Tripp,  the  leading  Democrat  of  the  Ter- 
ritory and  State,  himself  the  chairman  of  the 
Sioux  Falls  Constitutional  Convention  of  1883, 

172 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

in  discussiug  with  the  writer  the  history  of  the 
Struggle  for  Statehood,  declared  that  "Joseph 
Ward  was  the  prime  mover  in  the  whole  thing." 
Such  is  the  testimony  generally  of  those  who 
were  acquainted  with  the  Movement  from  its 
beginning.  The  influence  of  that  people's  organ- 
ization, begun  with  the  local  "clubs"  and  contin- 
uing in  widening  extent  in  the  Citizens'  Constitu- 
tional Association  and  the  Dakota  Citizens' 
League,  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  Of  that 
organization  Dr.  Ward  was  undoubtedly  the 
inspiring  mind.  General  Beadle,  of  that  original 
group  of  men  who  discussed  plans  of  statehood 
at  the  Thanksgiving  dinner,  has  gone  down  in  his- 
tory as  the  Father  of  the  School  Land  Law,  which 
was  the  best  law  of  the  kind  that  had  ever  been 
enacted  in  any  new  state  and  became  the  model 
for  those  states  which  have  since  come  into  the 
Union.  General  Beadle  himself  bears  chief  tes- 
timony as  to  how  completely  Dr.  W^ard's  heart 
was  in  that  cause,  and  how  strongly  he  wrought 
to  secure  the  enactment  of  that  law.  Judge 
Campbell,  the  brilliant  advocate  of  the  people's 
liberties,  a  man  of  splendid  devotion  and  zeal, 
was  strongly  supported  for  nomination  as  one  of 
the  first  senators  from  the  new  state,  and  was  a 
man  naturally  ambitious  of  political  honors.  But 
although  his  abilities  and  patriotic  labors  were 
praised  on  everj^  hand,  he  never  gained  that  per- 
sonal influence  over  various  kinds  of  men  such 
as  would  enable  him  to  secure  the  nomination. 
His  Scotch  blood  was  full  of  fighting  spirit;  he 
knew  not  the  art  of  conciliating  his  opponents. 

173 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

All  the  more  notable  on  this  account  is  the  testi- 
mony he  has  borne  regarding  Dr.  Ward,  with 
whom  he  was  so  intimately  associated  in  the 
Statehood  Movement.  He  realized,  more  than 
man}'  another  was  likely  to,  how  in  that  whole 
period  Dr.  Ward  had  probably  greater  influence 
personally  with  the  best  citizenship  of  the  State 
than  any  other  man,  and  at  the  same  time  held 
the  personal  regard  and  friendship  of  men  of  all 
shades  of  opinion  during  the  progress  of  the 
cause  of  Statehood.  In  summing  up  the  work  of 
Dr.  Ward,  Judge  Campbell  said: 

"To  this  result,  no  influence  contributed  so  pow- 
erfully as  that  of  Dr.  Ward,  and  the  phalanx  of 
determined  men  with  whom  he  acted.  The  small 
and  petty  influence  of  mere  office  seekers,  who 
had  neither  originated  nor  guided  the  movement 
for  Statehood,  but  had  merely  attached  them- 
selves to  it  for  the  sake  of  office,  was  insignificant 
in  comparison  with  that  of  the  great  popular  sen- 
timent of  the  state,  which  Dr.  Ward,  more  than 
any  other  man,  had  rallied  to  the  flag  of  State- 
hood. 

"It  is  a  significant  fact,  that,  at  any  time,  had 
he  been  willing,  the  popular  sentiment  would 
have  chosen  him  as  one  of  South  Dakota's  first 
United  States  senators.  But  he  had  no  selfish 
ambitions.  His  sphere  of  duties  commanded 
him  in  an  opposite  direction,  to  the  sacrifice  of 
ease,  wealth,  and  finally  life,  and  he  peremptorily 
and  absolutely  declined  to  allow  his  name  to  be 
urged  in  that  connection. 

"As  a  result  of  his  seven  years'  services  in  this 
174 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  STATEHOOD 

struggle,  Yankton  County  stood  higher  and 
wielded  a  greater  influence  in  the  councils  of  the 
State,  during  that  period,  than  she  has  ever  done 
before  or  since.  And  South  Dakota,  as  long  as 
her  present  constitution  and  her  free  schools 
shall  stand,  will  have  an  abiding  monument  of 
his  labors.''* 

On  the  subject  of  public  lands  and  the  public 
schools.  Dr.  Ward  held  still  further  views  than 
those  which  are  represented  in  the  Constitution 
of  South  Dakota.  Strongly  as  he  believed  in 
safeguarding  the  magnificent  endowment  of  pub- 
lic education  in  the  future  state  by  prohibiting 
the  early  and  ill-considered  disposal  of  any  part 
of  the  school  lands,  he  had  at  the  same  time  an 
equally  strong  sense  of  the  immediate  needs  of 
public  education  in  the  early  growth  of  a  new" 
commonwealth.  He  possessed  pre-eminently  the 
spirit  of  a  founder,  with  prophetic  understanding 
of  the  importance  of  right  beginnings.  In  an 
article  he  published  in  "The  Andover  Review,'' 
Vol.  I,  p.  448,  on  "Government  Aid  to  Education 
in  the  New  West,"  he  proposed  a  plan  by  which, 
without  sacrifice  of  the  prospective  increase  in 
value  of  the  school  lands,  there  could  yet  be  sup- 
plied that  timely  aid  to  the  foundation  of  public 
schools  in  struggling  pioneer  communities  which 
would  count  so  much  for  future  citizenship.  This 
was,  in  a  word,  that  the  Federal  Government 
should  set  apart  a  small  portion,  say  one-tenth, 
from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  its  public  lands 
in   the  territories,   to   be  granted   under  careful 

*Memorial  Number  of  "The  Yankton  Student." 

175 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

supervision  for  aid  in  the  establishing  of  public 
schools,  the  fund  so  loaned,  together  with  a  low 
rate  of  interest,  to  be  repaid  at  such  time  later 
as  the  school  lands  of  the  new  state  should 
become  salable  at  a  favorable  price,  as  duly  safe- 
guarded hj  the  state  constitution.  "This  would 
be,"  he  argued,  "an  opportunity  for  the  Govern- 
ment to  help  in  a  legitimate  way  the  upbuilding 
of  society,"  and  at  the  same  time  save  new  states 
from  the  necessity,  "making  a  temptation  usually 
too  strong  to  be  resisted,  to  sell  their  school 
lands  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  as  a 
result  getting  but  a  small  part  of  their  real 
value." 


17(; 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

DK.  WARD,  instead  of  turning  his  eyes  to- 
ward a  high  career  of  public  service,  as  he 
might  have  done,  chose  to  stand  by  the  hard 
task  of  building  the  College.  This  chapter  and 
the  one  following,  covering  the  last  years  of  his 
life,  will  resume  and  bring  to  a  close  the  story  of 
that  work.  To  establish  the  institution  he  had 
called  into  being  was  the  crowning  labor  of  his 
life.  The  story  is  one  of  heroic  struggle  and  sac- 
rifice, leading  to  a  tragic  but  victorious  end.  Dr. 
Ward  said:  "An  institution  that  is  to  live  must 
have  life — liicraUii  life — put  into  it."  The  saying- 
was  the  prophecy  of  his  sacrifice,  and  we  shall 
see  how  it  was  very  literally  fulfilled. 

His  chief  task  continued  to  be  that  of  securing 
funds.  Dr.  Ward's  faith  that  the  College  was  of 
God  meant  on  his  part  the  utmost  activity  to  pro- 
vide for  its  growing  needs.  This  necessitated 
those  long  periods  of  absence  in  the  East,  work- 
ing among  the  churches  to  secure  friends  and 
gifts  for  the  College.  His  methods  of  presenting 
the  cause  of  the  College  were  dignified  and  char- 
acteristic. "He  thought  it  enough,"  writes  Pro- 
fessor Shaw,  "to  tell  the  story  of  the  work  and 
let  the  work  be  its  own  plea.     He  seldom  if  ever 

179 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

asked  for  a  contribution  from  a  ctiurch.  It  was 
sometimes  made  in  spite  of  him.  He  preferred 
to  see  in  private  those  for  whose  aid  he  hoped, 
and  in  his  quiet  way  present  the  needs  of  the  Col- 
lege as  an  opportunity  to  those  who  had  means  to 
give.  He  never  sought  to  tell  a  pitiful  story.  He, 
never  'banked'  on  the  hardships  of  the  new  enter- 
prise." 

And  yet  the  burden  of  soliciting  weighed  heav- 
ily upon  him.  The  task  had  been  forced  upon 
him,  not  adopted  of  his  own  choice.  He  would 
greatly  have  preferred  to  remain  at  home  in  the 
work  of  teaching,  which  he  loved  so  well,  and  in 
continuous  touch  with  the  local  administration 
of  the  College,  instead  of  going  on  those  frequent 
and  prolonged  journeys  in  search  of  funds.  "My 
connection  with  Yankton  College,"  he  said  in  a 
letter  to  Professor  Shaw,  "will  soon  grow  to  be 
mythical  and  legendary,  and  the  next  generation 
may  seriously  question  whether  I  ever  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  it."  He  used  to  feel  sometimes 
the  keenest  repugnance  to  the  act  of  solicitation. 
"I  had  rather  have  forty  stripes  laid  on  my  bare 
back,"  he  would  say  sometimes,  upon  setting  out 
to  solicit  someone  for  a  gift.  And  again  in  a 
letter  to  Professor  Shaw  he  exclaimed,  "Does  God 
require  a  college  to  be  founded  by  begging-  from 
door  to  door?" 

Notwithstanding  Dr.  Ward's  utmost  efforts,  the 
gap  between  income  and  expenditure  yawned 
wider  from  year  to  year.  Attendance  increased; 
the  teaching  force  had  to  be  enlarged  as  the  work 
developed;  expenses  rapidly  mounted  up.  The  Col- 

180 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

lege  was  in  debt  from  the  time  of  the  erection  of 
the  first  building  in  1883.  It  was  still  more  in 
debt  when  the  next  building,  a  dormitory  for 
Toung  women,  was  started  in  1886.  Dr.  Ward 
was  determined  to  push  the  work  forward,  as  the 
need  arose.  "We  decided  to  enlarge  by  engaging 
another  teacher  for  next  year,"  he  writes,  in  ref- 
erence to  a  trustee  meeting  in  1886;  "also  to  begin 
the  erection  of  Ladies'  Hall.  This  is  all  on  faith, 
for  we  have  no  mone3\  In  less  than  an  hour  Mr. 
Wilcox  came  in  and  gave  me  $200,  which  was 
given  him  by  his  mother  just  before  her  death. 
This  is  a  blessed  beginning  for  our  Hall." 

Blessed  indeed  it  was,  yet  all  this  persistence 
in  going  forward  on  faith,  had  a  look  of  dubious 
business.     How  was  it  all  going  to  end? 

The  remarkable  fact  in  this  situation  of  great 
uncertainty  and  risk  was  that  Dr.  Ward  was  able 
to  secure  so  fine  a  body  of  teachers,  who  caught 
his  spirit,  and  believed  in  the  College,  and  stayed 
by  the  work  year  after  year,  with  salaries  some- 
times unpaid  for  months  at  a  time.  In  more  than 
one  case  offers  were  refused  of  better  positions 
elsewhere.  The  members  of  the  faculty  were  co- 
workers with  him  in  a  great  enterprise.  In  one  of 
his  letters  to  Professor  Shaw,  he  writes:  "I  trust 
that  you  feel  that  you  have  just  as  much  of  a 
divine  call  to  help  found  Yankton  College  as  I 
have.  There  is  no  rank  in  that  part  of  the  work. 
You  are  not  below  me,  nor  I  above  you.  If  we 
were  to  change  places  to-morrow,  you  would  have 
no  more  responsibility  and  I  no  less.  May  God 
guide  and  strengthen  us  both."     In  a  letter  to 

181 


JOSEPH   WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

Mrs.  Ward,  he  says:  "I  do  not  believe  another  col- 
lege in  the  land  has  such  a  united  and  devoted 
band  of  teachers  as  ours,"  and  he  reports  to  her 
of  letters  of  loyalty  and  encouragement  he  has 
received  from  various  ones.  Again  and  again  in 
his  letters  to  her  he  pays  eloquent  tribute  to 
Shaw,  and  Norton,  and  Bartlett,  and  Mrs.  Wilder, 
and  Swain,  and  others — sharers  with  him  in  hard- 
ship and  sacrifice.  He  believed  that  these  trials 
of  the  College  were  for  its  own  good.  The  strain 
and  burden  of  it  all,  as  borne  by  himself  and  each 
one  of  the  teachers,  w^as  the  "testing"  he  so  often 
spoke  of — God's  tcMing  of  the  College  to  see 
whether  it  was  worthy  to  live. 

The  letters  he  wrote  to  members  of  the  faculty 
during  his  absences  in  the  East  were  full  of  good 
cheer,  and  of  interest  in  the  details  of  their  work. 
"In  the  midst  of  his  activity  in  the  East,"  writes 
Professor  Shaw,  "speaking  in  public  many  times 
each  week,  upon  topics  pertaining  to  all  forms 
of  Christian  enterprise  in  the  West,  upon  all  of 
which  his  words  were  weighty  with  the  authority 
of  perfect  familiarity  with  his  subjects  and  of 
sound  wisdom  in  their  treatment,  he  yet  found 
time  to  write  letters  full  of  practical  suggestions 
as  to  many  matters  of  detail  connected  with  the 
daily  work  of  the  College.  His  return  home 
seemed  always  to  lighten  all  burdens  and  the  per- 
plexities which  had  gathered  seemed  dissipated 
by  his  presence,  before  they  had  even  been  stated 
to  him."  In  one  of  Dr.  Ward's  letters  to  Professor 
Shaw,  he  says:  "Your  account  of  individual  boys 
is  exactly  what  I  want;  repeat  the  process  always 

182 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

when  you  write."  And  again:  "Talk  about  the 
discover}^  of  America  by  Columbus!  We  are  dis- 
counting that  every  j^ear.  That  had  to  come; 
some  other  fellow  would  have  stumbled  over  the 
continent  in  a  few  years  more  anyway.  But  this 
discovery  of  boys  and  girls,  and  making  them 
into  Christian  heroes — only  a  Christian  col- 
lege can  do  that.  Why,  we  are  doing  even 
more  than  a  church.  I  have  grieved  over  losing 
the  pastor's  place,  and  do  still;  but  I  am  finding 
"compensation — only  J  am  not  doing  the  real  work. 
You  on  the  field  are  doing  that,  and  I  am  just 
planting  potatoes." 

Again,  in  some  hour  of  unusual  trial,  we  find 
him  rallying  one  of  his  friends  of  the  faculty  in 
this  vein :  "I  am  glad  on  the  whole  you  are  having 
this  occasional  drooping  of  spirits,  for  otherwise 
I  might  think  you  were  like  the  good  bo^^  in  the 
Sunday-school  book,  about  to  pass  away  to  a 
'brighter  and  happier  sphere.'  " 

But  not  all  the  teachers  stayed.  Writing  to 
Mrs.  Ward  in  1886  of  one  who  had  gone,  and 
prospect  of  other  losses,  he  says:  "This  may  be 
the  crowning  of  our  difficulties,  to  have  our  glo- 
rious band  of  teachers  fail  us  in  one  way  or  an- 
other. But  after  that  will  come  enlargement, 
deliverance,  and  complete  victory.  Those  who 
endure  to  see  tJiat  day  will  have  a  very  large 
reward,  and  those  who  fail,  by  just  a  little,  to  hold 
fast  will  always  have  it  to  regret.  It  is  to  those 
who  hang  on  after  all  is  gone,  and  make  one  more 
effort,  that  victory  comes  at  last." 

Testing,  as  of  gold  by  fire,  endurance,  deliverance, 
183 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

victory — these  were  ever  recurring  watchwords  in 
his  letters  to  her. 

The  influence  of  Mrs.  Ward  in  the  work  he  did 
can  never  be  fully  expressed.  Some  suggestion 
of  what  it  was  may  be  gathered  from  the  follow- 
ing letters  to  Mrs.  Ward: 

"Salem,  Mass.,  Feb.  13,  1886. 
"How  much  more  thoroughly,  and  broadly,  and 
permanently  the  College  will  be  established  by 
having  two  founders  instead  of  one.  Your  words 
of  cheer  and  caution  and  courage  come  to  me  in 
just  the  time  and  way  I  need  them.  I  am  slow 
in  coming  to  some  of  the  conclusions  which  you 
have  had  from  the  beginning.  In  the  end  we 
shall  stand  together.  I  wonder  if  any  man  was 
ever  enough  consecrated  to  have  the  personal 
element  eliminated  from  his  work.  I  am  getting 
to  the  point  of  burning  my  ships.  I  am  almost 
to  the  point  of  entire  freedom  from  anxiety." 

She  is  more  ready  than  he  to  risk  everything 
in  the  great  cause,  trusting  wholly  in  God.  The 
"conclusions  she  had  had  from  the  beginning"  ap- 
pear to  have  been  in  the  nature  of  a  willingness 
to  give  their  "all"  to  the  College  rather  than  have 
the  work  fail  or  suffer  loss.  Already  they  had 
given  heavily  to  the  college  funds  out  of  the  mod- 
est patrimony  of  Mrs.  Ward;  considerable  sums 
had  slipped  away  in  unfortunate  business  enter- 
prises; there  was  really  nothing  at  this  time  avail- 
able except  the  home,  which  her  father  had  built 
for  them.     Mrs.  Ward  was  now  urging  that  that 

184 


^m\ 


"SIP?. 


MRS.  SARAH  F.  WARD 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

be  sold  and  the  proceeds  used  for  the  College. 
His  own  reasoning  on  this  point  appears  in  the 
course  of  the  following  letter  to  her: 

"Salem,  Mass.,  Feb.  19,  1886. 
"I  have  carried  in  mj  pocket  for  all  the  time 
since  a  letter  you  wrote  just  a  year  ago  this  same 
Sabbath.  Often  and  often  I  have  taken  it  out  to 
get  its  cheer  and  faith  to  carry  me  through  the 
darkness.  'God  help  you  not  to  care  for  the  name 
and  satisfaction  of  getting  a  great  sum  of  money 
for  the  College.  Are  you  and  I  willing  to  give 
our  all,  and  if  God  thinks  best  to  "die  without 
the  sight"  of  what  we  most  desire  for  Yankton 
College.  That's  the  question,  it  seems  to  me, — 
more  faith,  more  consecration,  more  courage  for 
us  both.'  That  is  your  ringing  cry,  and  I  have 
heard  it  and  lived  by  it." 

Then  he  reasons  on  the  question  of  parting 
with  the  home — which  in  the  minds  of  both  is 
what  is  meant  by  giving  their  "all,"  so  far  as 
property  is  concerned.  He  would  defer  that  step. 
"Indeed  I  have  already  made  a  proposal  to  Mr. 
Miner  and  Mr.  Walker  to  take  my  part  of  the 
brick  business,  as  the  first  step  in  being  ready  to 
be  more  entirely  at  the  service  of  the  College." 
He  argues  that  the  home  was  given  to  them  in  the 
first  place  providentially  for  helping  them  to  es- 
tablish the  Church,  and  that  since  then  it  had 
been  still  more  an  instrument  in  their  hands  for 
carrying  on  the  work  of  establishing  the  College. 
"Our  house  was  predestined  for  its  present  use.  It 
has  a  dignity  and  character  just  fitted  for  its 

185 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

work.  .  .  ,  Now  is  not  this  our  situation:  we  are 
called  to  this  work,  not  to  build  the  College,  but 
to  get  others  to  build  it.  Meanwhile,  until  others 
come  to  the  point  of  doing  their  share,  we  must 
hold  things  together.  This  we  have  done,  and 
are  doing,  and  will  do,  until  the  crisis  is  past.  It 
is  your  monev  that  has  secured  what  has  already 
been  gained.  To  put  every  cent  you  have  unre- 
servedly into  that  now  would  not  meet  all  the 
demands.  But  it  would  weaken  us  so  that  we 
could  not  hold  it  any  longer.  Are  you  longing 
to  say,  'But  if  we  give  all  that  we  have,  God  will 
raise  up  givers  to  carry  it  farther'?  I  grant  that, 
but  then  we  shall  have  put  an  end  to  our  power 
of  giving  ourselves  in  actual  and  effective  service. 
By  keeping  our  house  (and  I  use  that  all  along  as 
the  symbol  of  all  your  property)  we  retain  a  posi- 
tion from  which  we  can  also  give  ourselves.  We 
have  already  given  enough  money  to  act  as  an 
'example.'  If  we  can  sell  the  brickyard  we  shall 
be  in  shape  to  repeat  the  example  still  more  effec- 
tively." 

Of  Dr.  Ward's  personal  business  enterprises, 
to  which  reference  has  just  been  made,  it  may 
be  said  that  they  were  characteristically  of  a 
large,  hopeful,  and  public-spirited  nature,  involv- 
ing borrowed  capital  besides  his  own.  He  was  a 
strong  promoter  in  these  things  and  a  great 
believer  in  the  business  future  of  Dakota.  It 
was  in  this  spirit  that  he  formed  a  company  for 
the  manufacture  of  pressed  brick  in  Yankton, 
and  afterwards  established  the  first  electric  light 
plant  of  the  town.     In  both  of  these  undertakings 

186 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

he  lost  heavily.  The  high  rate  of  interest  which 
borrowers  were  obliged  to  pay  iu  those  early 
times  he  regarded  as  iniquitous,  and  he  preached 
one  very  decided  sermon  on  the  subject.  He  was 
approached  once  on  the  subject  of  an  investment 
in  a  banking  business,  holding  out  prospect  of 
safe  and  rather  large  profit,  but  declined'  to  go 
into  it  on  conscientious  grounds:  he  was  unwil- 
ling to  profit  by  the  necessities  of  borrowers  in 
pioneer  times.  He  preferred  to  remain  himself 
as  one  of  the  borrowing  class.  But  none  of  his 
ventures  paid,  and  anxiety  over  personal  debts 
and  losses  was  added  to  his  burden  of  responsi- 
bility for  the  College. 

Dr.  Ward  bore  the  increasing  care  and  strain 
of  his  work  with  wonderful  patience  and  courage. 
No  one  ever  heard  him  complain.  At  meetings  of 
the  Church  Associations  he  never  spoke  of  the 
College  but  with  cheer  and  hope.  Moreover,  in 
all  his  ways  he  preserved  the  same  genial,  whole- 
some temper  of  mind,  and  enjoyed  the  good  things 
of  life  from  day  to  day.  This  impression  of  Dr. 
Ward  as  a  man  of  humorous  and  bright  disposi- 
tion should  be  kept  in  view  along  with  the  record 
of  hardship  and  struggle  in  these  later  years. 
He  always  was  fond  of  a  joke  or  a  story.  No 
man  ever  entered  more  naturally  into  the  fun  of 
a  company  of  young  people.  He  is  remembered 
as  the  prince  of  merrymakers  among  them.  On 
his  travels  he  was  always  a  welcome  and  cheerful 
guest  in  the  homes  he  visited,  however  severe  the 
mental  troubles  he  might  be  bearing.  He  had 
cosy  days  of  rest  and  good  cheer  at  his  brother 

187 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

Butler's  home  in  Leroy,  N.  Y.,  where  he  usually 
stopped  on  his  way  to  and  from  New"  England, 
and  at  Perry  Centre,  his  old  home,  near  by.  At 
Andover,  Massachusetts,  scene  of  his  Academy 
and  Seminary  studies,  he  had  a  circle  of  w^armest 
friends,  former  classmates  and  teachers,  who  vied 
with  each  other  in  securing  him  as  a  guest.  He 
spent  much  time  there  while  in  the  East,  and  with 
the  help  of  these  friends  found  many  generous 
givers  in  Andover  and  elsew^here.  At  Salem, 
Massachusetts,  was  the  home  of  the  Eev.  DeWitt 
S.  Clark,  D.D.,  Mrs.  Ward's  sister's  husband, 
where  he  made  his  headquarters  from  time  to 
time.  It  was  a  beautiful,  old-fashioned,  brick 
house,  covered  with  vines,  and  facing  the  historic 
Common;  the  interior  furnished  in  exquisite  taste, 
with  its  elegant,  old  winding  staircase,  its  fine 
ancestral  portraits  on  the  w^all,  and  its  quantities 
of  beautiful  books.  Dr.  Clark's  Tabernacle 
Church  of  Salem,  one  of  the  old  and  influential 
churches  of  New  England,  became  a  centre  of 
strength  for  the  College,  and  some  of  its  mem- 
bers were  among  the  most  substantial  contribu- 
tors. In  many  another  New  England  home  Dr. 
Ward  was  entertained  w^ith  the  kindest  of  hospi- 
tality— as  for  instance  at  the  Dakin's  in  Clinton, 
Massachusetts,  parishioners  of  Dr.  DeWitt  Clark 
in  his  earlier  pastorate  at  that  place.  Their  "lov- 
ing cordiality"  always  touched  his  heart.  Mr. 
Dakin  was  a  moderately  well-to-do  carpet  manu- 
facturer, who  made  a  business  of  giving  his 
money  to  good  causes,  among  them  Yankton  Col- 
lege.    Dr.  Ward's  genial  sociability  and    humor 

188 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

made  him  a  much  desired  guest  at  many  a  choice 
festival  gathering,  and  he  was  known  as  one  of 
the  happiest  of  after-dinner  speakers.  Not  the 
least  of  his  enjoyments  in  the  course  of  his  jour- 
neys was  in  making  friends  with  children.  He  is 
always  writing  Mrs.  Ward  about  the  children  he 
has  met,  on  trains,  and  in  homes  where  he  was 
entertained.  All  children  instinctively  loved 
him.  He  was  frequently  in  request  as  a  speaker 
at  Sunday  Schools  and  other  children's  meetings. 
"To  be  able  to  help  a  child,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to 
his  wife,  "is  the  most  divine  thing  a  man  can  do 
in  the  world." 

From  this  reminder  of  some  of  the  pleasanter 
things  in  his  experience,  we  must  now  turn  to 
that  extraordinary  event,  occurring  in  the  year 
1886,  which  proved  indeed  the  trial  by  fire  of  Dr. 
Ward  and  the  College — an  overwhelming  disas- 
ter, which  more  than  any  other  cause  bowed 
down  that  iron  frame  of  his  at  last,  and  brought 
his  life  to  a  premature  close. 

Dr.  Ward,  and  with  him  Yankton  College,  be- 
came involved,  quite  undeservedly,  in  the  great 
theological  controversy,  which  came  to  a  focus 
about  that  time,  over  the  so-called  Andover  The- 
ology. The  point  upon  which  that  intense  dis- 
pute centred  was  the  famous  hypothesis,  as 
taught  at  Andover  Seminary,  of  Future  Probation 
for  infants  and  heathen  who  died  without  the 
saving  knowledge  of  Christ.  The  Andover  men 
promulgated  the  theory,  not  as  a  positive  doc- 
trine, but  as  a  hope  or  possibility,  which  would 
help  particularly  to  satisfy  the  anxious  question- 

189 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ings  of  the  heathen  concerning  the  fate  of  their 
ancestors,  who  had  never  heard  of  Christ,  and, 
according  to  orthodox  evangelism,  were  irretriev- 
ably lost.  It  was  one  of  those  critical  periods  in 
the  history  of  the  Church  when  strong,  earnest 
men  have  differed  intensely  on  some  point  of 
Christian  faith,  involving  painful  and  disastrous 
consequences.  But  happih"  the  question  has  long 
ago  ceased  to  disturb  our  peace,  and  those  who 
are  occupied  with  such  speculations  may  enjoy 
the  hopeful  view  without  serious  opposition.  The 
Andover  professors  at  that  time  rightly  insisted 
that  in  their  teaching  the  question  of  future  pro- 
bation was  only  a  minor  point.  The  real  signifi- 
cance of  Andover  Theology,  styled  by  the  men 
themselves  "Progressive  Orthodoxy,"  was  that 
Andover  Seminary  was  turning  her  face  toward 
new  light,  and  seeking  to  reconstruct  the  doc- 
trines handed  down  from  the  New  England  fath- 
ers so  as  to  meet  the  conditions  of  present-day 
life  and  thought.  It  is  plain  enough  in  the  retro- 
spect how  futile  was  the  attempt  made  to  sup- 
press the  teachings  of  the  Andover  men,  although 
the  attack  was  sufficient  to  well-nigh  cause  the 
ruin  of  Andover  Seminary.  "Progressive  Ortho- 
doxy" was  in  reality  but  a  part  of  the  world-wide 
movement,  which  began  about  that  time,  toward 
a  more  liberal  and  practical  conception  of  Chris- 
tian truth.  "Strange  that  men  think  they  can 
stay  the  current  of  thought,"  as  one  of  the  proph- 
ets of  that  day  exclaimed.  "As  well  think  to 
press  the  light  of  noon  back  into  the  sun,  and 
sink  the  sun  behind  the  eastern  hills." 

190 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

The  specific  attack  upon  Andover  Theology,  and 
particularly  upon  the  hypothesis  of  Future  Pro- 
bation, was  made  on  behalf  of  the  American 
Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions, 
that  great  missionary^  organization  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches  of  this  country.  The  Pruden- 
tial Committee,  or  governing  body  of  the  Ameri- 
can Board,  a  majority  of  whom  were  strongly 
conservative  men,  supported  by  the  conservative 
element  in  the  denomination  at  large,  assumed 
the  function  of  guardians  of  the  faith,  against 
the  dangerous  heresy  of  Future  Probation.  There 
was  seen  impending  in  the  new  theory  "a  Niagara 
plunge  into  universalism."  This  hope  of  future 
probation  would  "cut  the  nerve  of  missions" — 
for  why  bring  to  the  heathen  the  alternative  of 
accepting  Christ,  with  its  fearful  risk  for  eternity, 
when  they  might  better  be  left  in  their  ignorance 
to  the  mercy  of  God?  Accordingly  the  Pruden- 
tial Committee  instituted  a  policy  of  strict  exam- 
ination of  candidates  for  appointment  as  foreign 
missionaries  upon  their  views  as  to  Future  Pro- 
bation, declining  to  commission  any  who  showed 
the  least  trace  of  infection.  The  policy  was  of 
course  aimed  chiefly  at  the  graduates  of  Andover 
Seminary.  Among  the  Andover  graduates  who 
were  cast  aside  under  this  inquisition  the  most 
conspicuous  case  was  that  of  the  Rev.  Robert  A. 
Hume,  missionary  to  India,  at  that  time  home  on 
furlough.  He  was  a  man  of  splendid  ability,  and 
consecration,  and  missionary  enthusiasm,  whose 
work  in  India  had  been  eminently  successful;  but 
the  Prudential  Committee  declined  to  reappoint 

191 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

him  on  account  of  his  views  regarding  Future 
Probation. 

This  famous  case,  together  with  others  of  like 
nature,  fanned  the  controversy  to  white  heat.  It 
became  the  all-absorbing  topic  in  the  religious 
press  of  the  country,  the  two  leading  periodicals 
of  the  Congregational  denomination  vigorously 
supporting  the  Prudential  Committee.  The  news- 
papers of  the  country  took  up  the  subject,  and 
public  attention  everywhere  was  drawn  to  this 
exciting  struggle,  which  now  threatened  to  result 
in  a  schism  of  the  Church. 

The  "Gettysburg  of  the  fight"  was  at  the  meet- 
ing of  the  American  Board  held  at  Des  Moines, 
Iowa,  October  7,  1886.  It  was  at  that  time  that 
Dr.  Ward  and  Yankton  College  became  involved 
in  the  dispute  in  a  manner  which  made  it  the  cri- 
sis of  his  career.  The  question  was  upon  whether 
the  American  Board  should  sustain  its  Pruden- 
tial Committee  in  the  policy  it  had  adopted  in 
relation  to  Andover  Seminary  and  Future  Proba- 
tion. Dr.  Ward,  as  a  corporate  member  of  the 
Board,  attended  that  meeting,  and  in  the  famous 
"Great  Debate"  which  there  occurred  spoke  and 
voted  for  the  cause  of  Andover.  He  stood  with 
the  Andover  men,  not  because  he  was  himself  an 
Andover  graduate,  not  because  Professor  Smyth 
and  other  Andover  teachers  were  his  personal 
friends,  and  distinctly  not  because  of  any  particu- 
lar interest  he  had  in  the  question  of  Future  Pro- 
bation. As  one  has  rightly  said  of  him,  "he  was 
not  a  theologian,  but  a  man  of  action."  What  he 
did  believe  in  profoundly  was  the  Christian  man- 

192 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

hood  of  a  missionary  like  Hume,  and  of  those 
splendid,  inspiring,  and  consecrated  teachers  in 
Andover  Seminary.  Dr.  Ward  was  one  of  those 
who  were  not  afraid  to  trust  the  consciousness  of 
Christian  men.  "The  real  question  at  issue,"  he 
said  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  "is  liberty  of 
thought." 

So  he  took  his  stand  in  the  great  battle  on  the 
side  of  liberty  of  thought.  It  was  the  side  that 
was  bound  to  win  in  the  end,  but  on  that  day  it 
was  the  losing  side,  as  everyone  could  foresee,  for 
the  Conservatives  were  largely  in  the  majority. 
That  Dr.  Ward  chose  the  course  he  did,  in  that 
hour  of  intense  factional  strife,  when  the  princi- 
palities and  powers  of  the  Denomination  were  ar- 
rayed on  the  other  side,  could  not  but  mean 
grave  peril  to  the  struggling  college  of  which  he 
was  the  head.  He  certainly  realized  the  danger 
he  incurred.  The  occasion  was  a  proper  one  for 
the  display  of  that  form  of  discretion  known  as 
"institutional  cowardice,"  but  Dr.  Ward  was  the 
wrong  man  for  it.  It  is  known  that  after  he  had 
made  his  speech  at  the  Board  meeting,  one  of  the 
powerful  New  England  leaders  of  the  conserva- 
tive side  came  to  him,  and  with  an  almost  threat- 
ening gesture  said:  "IW  iciU  make  your  college 
pay  for  this  lohen  you  come  East  to  collect  funds."^ 
The  College  was  dearer  than  life  itself  to  Dr. 
Ward,  yet  his  reply  was:  ^^College  or  no  college,  I 
will  say  tchat  I  believe  to  be  right  and  just  and  true.^^ 

There  was  power  in  the  situation  that  could 
make  the  threat  good,  so  strong  was  the  deter- 
mination of  conservative  leaders  to  stamp  out 

193 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

heresy  at  any  cost.  But  the  peril  which  now  con- 
fronted him  was  soon  greatly  heightened  by 
events  which  occurred  at  Yankton  in  the  wake  of 
the  Des  Moines  controversy.  Word  was  carried 
home,  by  one  who  was  a  spectator  there  and 
heard  Dr.  Ward's  speech,  that  the  President  of 
the  College  had  turned  Universalist,  and  had  com- 
mitted the  institution  to  the  doctrine  of  Future 
Probation.  The  announcement  was  followed  up 
by  a  determined  attack,  which  stirred  the  whole 
town,  and  divided  the  church  into  bitter  factions. 
Certain  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
College  were  induced  to  resign,  and  to  publish 
in  the  leading  denominational  paper  in  the  East  a 
statement  declaring  their  fears  that  the  Institu- 
tion was  now  given  over  to  the  Andover  heresy, 
and  their  belief  that  the  policy  of  the  President 
was  ^^ fatal  alike  to  the  financial  and  spiritual  inter- 
ests of  the  College." 

This  personal  attack  in  his  own  town  and 
church  and  Board  of  Trustees  struck  home  to  Dr. 
Ward's  heart.  Men  who  had  been  his  friends 
since  early  days,  who  had  worked  with  him  in  the 
upbuilding  of  Church  and  College,  were  turned 
against  him  in  bitter  opposition.  Those  who 
knew  him  closely  could  never  forget  how  he  suf- 
fered under  it.  It  was  all  such  a  mistaken  and 
misguided  piece  of  persecution!  Dr.  Ward  had 
not,  by  his  action  at  Des  Moines,  or  by  any  other 
act  or  purpose,  "committed  the  College  to  the  An- 
dover doctrine."  Moreover,  in  the  work  of  the  Col- 
lege there  had  never  been  any  attempt  to  teach 
a  theology,  or  exercise  any  sort  of  sectarian  influ- 

194 


THE  "TESTING"  OP  THE  COLLEGE 

ence  over  students.  No  one  was  more  astonished 
at  the  accusation  brought  against  Dr.  Ward  than 
the  students  themselves.  Many  of  them  had 
never  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  Future  Probation. 
In  all  probability  the  doctrine  had  never  been 
mentioned  nor  alluded  to  within  the  college  walls 
by  student,  professor,  or  president.  Yet  the  word 
of  condemnation  had  now  gone  forth  from  Dr. 
Ward's  own  home,  and  from  the  council  chamber 
of  the  College  itself,  to  strengthen  the  hands  of 
those  who  had  already  assumed  an  attitude  of 
hostility  to  him.  The  great  organ  of  the  denomina- 
tion, published  in  Boston,  to  which  the  statement 
of  the  four  resigning  trustees  had  been  sent,  called 
attention  to  the  affair  as  a  warning  sign  of  the 
way  things  were  going.  "The  Andover  discussion 
has  reached  what  might  be  called  the  extreme  in- 
terior, and  has  shown  its  divisive  energy  in  the 
disruption  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Yank- 
ton College."  And  after  presenting  the  purport 
of  the  communication  by  the  trustees,  the  edito- 
rial concluded  with  the  following  comment — indi- 
cating the  inevitable  bearing  of  this  whole  course 
of  events :  "Benevolent  Congregation alists  who  may  he 
solicited  about  this  time  to  aid  Yankton  College  will 
do  well  to  look  at  the  subject  in  the  light  of  these 
facts.'' 

The  opponents  of  Dr.  Ward  were  now  armed 
with  the  means  to  crush  the  College,  and  he  had 
now  to  gird  himself  for  a  fight  in  which  the  odds 
were  terribly  against  him.  And  with  it  all  he  had 
to  bear  the  wound  in  his  heart  of  desertion  and 
hostility  at  home. 

195 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

He  spent  four  months  of  the  ensuing:  winter 
and  spring  traveling  in  New  England,  doing 
his  utmost  to  repair  the  damage  that  had  been 
done.  It  is  known  that  many  pulpits  were  now 
closed  to  this  "dangerous  person,  so  false  to  the 
church  and  the  gospel  he  was  supposed  to  preach"  and 
that  individuals  were  warned  not  to  give  him  any 
financial  assistance  as  he  went  to  and  fro  solicit- 
ing funds.  The  Congregational  College  and  Edu- 
cation Society,  also,  which  had  given  its  foster- 
ing aid  to  the  Institution  hitherto,  was  now 
"scared  and  cold,"  fearing  for  its  own  safety 
because  of  its  relationship  with  the  suspected 
institution. 

In  some  quarters  Dr.  Ward  was  received  with 
loyal  encouragement  and  support,  and  in  his  own 
accounts  of  those  days,  with  characteristic  hope- 
fulness, he  makes  the  most  of  every  bright  sign. 
Especially  by  his  friends  at  Andover  he  was  hailed 
with  enthusiasm  and  given  every  possible  assist- 
ance. Writing  from  Andover  in  February  to 
Professor  Shaw  he  says:  "I  have  had  what  might 
be  called  an  ovation,  and  all  on  account  of  my  so- 
called  heresy.  Have  seen  Churchill,  Tncker,  and 
Professor  Smyth,  and  have  just  come  from  dining 
at  Professor  Smyth's.  Oh,  it  is  good  to  be 
counted  worthy  to  suffer  with  such  men,  and  rev- 
erently be  it  said,  all  this  makes  one  feel  more  in 

sympathy  with  Christ I  have  been 

busy  nearly  all  the  time  removing  fears  and  pre- 
judices caused  by  the  publication  of  that  resigna- 
tion in  'The  Congregationalist.'  I  have  not  failed 
in  a  single  instance.      The  most  signal  victory  was 

196 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

at  Fitchburg  two  days  since  in  getting  an  old  man 
who  had  given  a  |1,000  scholarship  to  withdraw 
his  withdrawal.  It  will  end  I  think  in  getting 
more  from  him." 

His  letters  to  Mrs.  Ward,  especially  in  the  ear- 
lier part  of  this  trip,  give  every  possible  item  of 
good  cheer.  The  following  bright  letter  tells 
of  inspiration  received  from  that  most  intimate 
of  his  eastern  friends,  Dr.  C.  F.  P.  Bancroft, 
Principal  of  Phillips  Academy,  Andover. 

"Salem,  Mass.,  Feb.  24,  1887. 
"What  a  blessed  thing  it  is  to  have  the  power 
of  bringing  cheer  to  others.  It  is  worth  far  more 
than  money.  I  have  had  a  bit  of  it  to-day,  I  mean 
from  another,  which  will  always  be  remembered. 
I  went  into  Boston  early  this  morning;  trudged, 
tramped,  and  interviewed;  got  |100  from  one 
man,  a  promise  from  another,  and  an  appoint- 
ment from  another.  Then  went  to  select  books 
at  Bartlett's.  There  found  Edward  Taylor,  who 
had  a  good  word.  Looking  out  of  the  window, 
whom  should  I  see  but  Bancroft.  I  ran  after  him, 
and  soon  we  were  hidden  in  a  dark  corner  full  of 
musty  books,  talking  College.  It  was  nothing  in 
particular  he  said,  but  the  cheer,  the  faith,  the 
more  than  solar  light  in  his  face  and  eyes  which 
built  me  a  firm  foundation  on  which  to  stand, 
and  made  my  heart  sinc/.''^ 

News  of  Bancroft  and  the  Andover  circle  of 
friends  was  always  pleasant  to  Mrs.  Ward.  She 
and  the  children  had  spent  some  months  at  An- 
dover during  a  previous  winter  while  Dr.  Ward 

197 


JOSEPH  WAED  OF  DAKOTA 

was  at  his  work  in  the  East,  forming  close  family 
friendships  in  those  Andover  homes;  and  the 
Ward  and  Bancroft  families  had  spent  a  summer 
vacation  together  at  Martha's  Vineyard  in  adja- 
cent cottages  near  East  Chop  Light.  Dr.  Ward's 
letters  from  Andover  at  this  time  are  full  of  the 
warm  regard  which  all  those  friends  felt  for  her. 
"When  one  of  your  letters  comes  to  this  Hill,"  he 
writes,  "it  is  passed  around  from  house  to  house 
like  a  new  novel." 

From  some  of  the  most  active  and  prominent 
Andover  sympathizers,  as  well  as  from  the  An- 
dover men  themselves.  Dr.  Ward  received  con- 
spicuous support;  which  very  fact,  however,  may 
have  strengthened  opposition  to  him  in  other 
quarters.  One  strong  backer  was  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth,  of  New  Haven,  brother  of  Professor 
Egbert  Smyth  of  Andover  Seminary,  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  influential  men  of  the  newer 
faith.  On  October  18,  1886,  shortly  following  the 
meeting  at  Des  Moines,  Dr.  Smyth  had  preached 
a  sermon  at  New  Haven  on  the  subject  of  that 
meeting,  which  was  published  in  full  in  one  of  the 
Boston  papers.  The  passage  from  that  sermon 
quoted  below  is  an  allusion  to  Dr.  Ward,  and  the 
stand  he  had  there  taken.  "One  beneficent  result 
of  such  a  meeting  and  trial  of  faith  as  we  have 
just  passed  through  is  to  develop  and  consolidate 
as  a  working  power  the  whole  body  of  educated 
men  whose  influence  ten  or  twenty  years  from 
now  will  be  profoundly  felt  in  the  missionary  his- 
tory and  triumph  of  American  Christianity;  men 
who  have  faith  enough  in  God's  revelation  of  him- 

198 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

self  in  Christ  to  be  eager  to  bring  their  beliefs  out 
into  all  possible  light;  men  who  read  and  think 
and  trust;  men  who  belong  to  no  faction  or  party 
in  the  church;  men  who  are  tolerant  because  they 
have  won  their  faith  through  strivings  and  at  the 
cost  of  many  traditions;  men  who,  whatever 
faults  may  mar  their  work,  are  not  going  to  prove 
theological  deifiers;  men  who  are  not  ambitious 
for  the  honors  of  leadership,  and  not  afraid  to 
suffer  if  need  be  for  their  convictions,  and  if  ever 
(I  Western  college  premdent  should  come  to  you  with 
my  endorsement  cm  his  paper  as  a  Christian  man  ivho 
at  a  time  of  trial  knew  not  what  institutional  cow- 
ardice was,  I  trust  you  will  honor  the  draft.'' 

Of  his  visit  to  Dr.  Smyth's  church,  which  was 
in  April,  he  says  in  his  letter  to  Mrs.  Ward:  "I 
was  quite  surprised  when  Smyth  told  me  this 
morning  that  I  was  to  be  the  first  one  who  had 
entered  his  pulpit  for  such  a  purpose,  and  then 
gave  a  history  of  the  dislike  of  the  Church  to  hear 
such  things,  and  of  their  peculiarities.  But  I  felt 
that  I  was  here  on  God's  errand,  and  so  was 
neither  afraid  nor  dismayed.  They  listened  well.  I 
made  the  whole  as  strong  as  possible,  for  I  felt 
that  I  was  pleading  not  only  for  one  college  but 
for  all  colleges  at  the  West.  Smyth  gave  me  a 
good  introduction,  alluding  to  what  he  had  said 
of  me  after  getting  back  from  Des  Moines,  and 
after  I  was  through  followed  with  a  few  well- 
chosen  words.  ...  In  less  than  an  hour  after 
the  close  of  the  service  came  a  note  from  a  gen- 
tleman of  wealth  and  a  professor  in  the  Scientific 
School,  saying,  'I  have  never  heard  the  argument 

199 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

in  favor  of  the  western  college  presented  so 
strongly  as  by  Dr.  Ward,  and  I  am  obliged  to 
you  for  letting  us  hear  him.'  There  was  a  cheek 
for  |100  in  the  letter.  .  .  .  The  sentence  1 
have  quoted  is  worth  more  to  me  than  the  check, 
for  it  shows  that  my  chief  desire  and  prayer  was 
granted,  that  I  might  do  my  work  so  as  to  honor 
God  and  help  forward  the  cause  of  Christian  edu- 
cation at  the  West." 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  characteristic  hopefulness 
expressed  in  his  letters,  the  cloud  of  trouble  that 
hung  over  him  was  growing  darker.  Notwith- 
standing the  exceptional  support  given  him  in 
some  quarters,  and  the  extraordinary  and  pro- 
longed solicitation  of  that  year,  the  contributions 
he  secured,  never  at  best  sufficient,  fell  off  by  a 
large  per  cent,  as  the  records  of  the  year  show. 
The  influence  of  hostile  faction  was  steadily 
counting  against  him.  What  he  was  so  unwilling 
to  see  w^as  forced  upon  his  mind  as  the  weeks  went 
on,  and  now  and  then  is  sadly  revealed  in  his  let- 
ters. "It  is  growing  very  mysterious,  very  dark, 
I  may  say,"  he  writes  to  Professor  Shaw.  "I  am 
everywhere  received  with  the  utmost  kindness, 
and  often  extreme  pains  taken  to  show  how 
highly  we  are  esteemed.  I  do  not  think  we  have 
lost  a  single  friend ;  I  know  we  have  gained  many 
new  ones.  But  as  yet  the  money  does  not  come 
even  so  fast  as  our  present  rate  of  going  calls 
for." 

It  was  early  in  that  year  of  1887  that  Dr.  Ward 
became  aware  that  he  was  a  victim  of  that  fatal 
malady,  diabetes,    which    was    destined    within 

200 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

three  years  to  carry  him  to  his  grave.  What  he 
needed  was  rest,  and  relief  from  his  burden  of 
anxiety,  by  which  his  life  could  probably  have 
been  considerably  prolonged.  But  he  must  keep 
up  the  fight.  He  never  worked  harder  nor  more 
unremittingly  than  in  these  remaining  years.  The 
seriousness  of  his  condition  was  known  to  but 
few,  but  in  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Ward  from  this 
time  on  there  is  the  frequent  note  of  great  physi- 
cal weariness,  and  sometimes  even  of  mental 
depression;  and  in  both  their  minds  there  dwells 
now  that  foreshadowing  thought  of  "dying  with- 
out the  sight." 

I  cannot  forbear  quoting  somewhat  at  length 
from  the  following  beautiful  letter: 

"Wellesley  College,  March  5,  1887." 
He  is  speaking  of  a  growing  feeling  of  depres- 
sion for  the  past  week,  "such  as  I  have  never  had 
before — at  least  in  so  marked  a  manner.  It  came 
on  me  as  if  from  without — as  something  with 
which  I  had  nothing  to  do,  as  if  thrown  at  me, 
and  not  to  be  avoided  or  escaped.  It  increased, 
until  this  morning  I  was  about  ready  to  give  up. 
I  did  not  see  how  I  could  carry  the  work  farther, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  the  only  sensible  thing  was  to 
give  the  work  into  other  hands. 

"Then  I  prayed,  the  only  thing  I  could  do,  and 
told  Christ  I  was  utterly  discouraged.  I  don't 
think  my  faith  failed  me  one  atom;  certainly  not 
my  faith  that  by  some  hand  the  College  would 
be  built.  That  was  about  all  my  prayer.  There 
was  no  wonderful  reply,  no  promise  of  Scripture 

201 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

brought  to  mind,  no  assurance  that  in  some  way 
the  College  is  to  succeed  which  I  have  not  had 
from  the  first. 

"But  my  depression  is  gone.  All  day  I  have 
been  full  of  more  than  usual  confidence  and  quiet. 
And  so  my  burden  is  taken  away,  and  in  the  way 
you  have  so  often  suggested — by  getting  near  to 
Christ.  More  and  more  this  comes  to  me  as  the 
solution  of  every  difficulty;  as  the  key  to  every 
situation;  as  the  only  means  of  'overcoming,'  of 
^enduring  to  the  end.' 

"I  have  not  yet  met  Miss  Freeman.*  She  is 
at  Norumbega  Hall,  one  of  the  new  buildings, 
with  Professor  Palmer,  of  Cambridge,  who  is  to 
read  here  this  evening  from  the  Odyssey.  .  .  . 
Just  here  he  came  in,  for  this  is  the  room  for  all 
gentlemen  guests.  He  did  not  know  me  at  first 
but  soon  recalled  me,  and  we  chatted  very  pleas- 
antly until  it  was  time  for  the  reading 

There  were  a  hundred  girls  or  more  to  hear  him 
read  from  the  22nd  and  23rd  Books.  The  first 
tells  how  Ulysses  and  Telemachus,  helped  by  the 
swineherd  and  the  neatherd,  slew  the  suitors  who 
had  been  seeking  the  hand  of  Penelope.  The  23rd 
is  taken  up  with  the  meeting  between  Ulysses 
and  Penelope  after  the  suitors  have  all  been  slain. 
I  was  able  to  follow  the  text  much  better  than  I 
supposed  would  be  possible — for,  as  Professor 
Palmer  said  after  the  reading,  4t  is  only  we  idlers 
who  can  keep  up  our  Greek.  Men  who  do  things 
like  you  cannot  find  time  for  it,' 

*Miss  Alice  Freeman,  president  of  Wellesley  College,  after- 
ward wife  of  Professor  George  H.  Palmer,  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. 

202 


THE  ''TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

"It  was  strange  that  just  as  my  heart  was  ach- 
ing with  absence  from  you,  should  come  this  story 
of  Ulysses,  wandering  at  the  divine  command, 
absent  from  his  home  and  his  native  land  for 
twenty  years,  at  last  returning  to  find  his  son 
alive,  and  his  wife  faithful,  and  all  his  enemies 
slain,  and  to  get  his  home  and  wife  again.  I  must 
not  wait  twenty  years,  nor  twenty  weeks,  wherein 
1  am  happier  than  Ulysses,  and  then  come  to  my 
wife,  truer  than  Penelope,  and  wiser,  and  more 
loving,  when  not  Homer  himself  could  tell  how 
we  shall  be  filled  with  joy,  and  I  shall  be  crowned 
with  greater  honor  than  the  long-suffering 
Ulysses." 

I  refrain  from  committing  to  these  pages  many 
beautiful  passages  from  his  letters  to  her,  but 
give  a  few  extracts  which  will  suggest  the  way 
in  which  they  were  working  together  in  those 
days  of  trial.  Speaking  of  what  she  had  to  bear 
in  his  absence,  what  he  calls  the  "scornings  and 
"scourgings"  of  factional  hostility  at  home,  he 
says:  "It  is  all  too  hard  to  think  of.  .  .  .  No 
man  ever  left  so  great  interests  in  the  hands  of 
his  wife.  No  one  was  ever  so  well  represented; 
no  one  will  ever  so  royally  stand,  and  with  such 
loving  dignity,  as  you  are  now  standing  for  me. 
.  .  .  But  I  am  praying  for  you  that  your  faith 
fail  not,  just  as  you,  and  Jennie,  and  Father 
Nichols  are  praying  for  me.  Sometime  a  reward 
will  come  to  me,  to  the  College,  to  you,  for  all  this 
burden  bearing.  Is  it  wrong  to  tell  our  Father 
that  which  he  already  knows,  that  we  are  pressed 
out  of  measure,  and  that  we  must  have  deliver- 

203 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ance,  and  very  soon." "Tramped  down  to  see 

,  and  I  do  not  know  whether  I  gained  any- 
thing more  than  to  have  him  redeem  his  pledge  of 
$500.  .  .  .  Bancroft  is  not  much  encouraged. 
I  am.  But  here  is  another  place  where  we  have 
done  all  we  can,  and  there  is  nothing  left  but  to 
pray  God  to  move  his  heart.     I  am  just  learning 

that  I  have  much  to  learn  about  prayer." They 

have  a  list  of  persons  that  they  are  praying  God 
to  move — he  and  she  and  "Jennie  and  Father 
Nichols"  and  one  or  two  others  all  praying 
together.  Their  praying  together  was  not  only 
specific  as  to  persons,  but  preconcerted  with  ref- 
erence to  dates  and  hours.     "I  want  30U  to  pray 

very  hard  that  R B may  be  ready  for  my 

meeting  him,  which  now  I  think  will  he  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  lothy He  is  about  to  have  an  inter- 
view with  M .    "What  will  come  of  it?    Just 

what  our  Father  wills.  More  and  more  the  whole 
of  my  work  is  a  matter  of  prayer,  so  as  to  find  out 
God's  will.  I  am  reading  over  and  over  again, 
and  have  done  so  for  days,  the  praj-er  of  Christ 
in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  There  is  so  much  in 
it:  it  covers  more  than  I  ever  get  in  all  my  life. 
If  you  were  here  we  would  consult  and  pray  over 
it — and  you  are  here  in  effect,  by  your  loving 
inspiration  filling  my  life.  I  give  thanks  for 
every  one  of  these  nineteen  years  which  have 
bound  us  closer  and  closer  together.  I  have  not 
yet  come  to  know  all  the  blessedness  of  our 
union." 

Dr.  Ward,  in  his  dire  distress,  was  relying  much 
on  a  kind  of  spiritual  logic,  as  expressed  in  the 

204 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

following  from  one  of  the  letters  of  the  period. 
He  is  not  getting  money  enough  to  make  possible 
the  carrying  forward  of  work  at  the  College 
which  advancing  classes  require.  Next  year 
students  will  be  leaving,  and  others  not  coming, 
because  they  cannot  get  the  work  they  want.  He 
is  driven  then  to  this  dilemma:  "First,  Yankton 
College  never  had  a  right  to  be;  it  was  none  of 
God's  planting,  and  consequently  will  die  in 
ignominy;  or,  Second,  deliverance  in  the  shape 
of  money  is  coming,  not  in  large  quantity  but 
enough,  and  coming  in  time  to  save  needless  loss 
of  momentum  already  gained.  I  cannot  accept 
number  one,  nor  can  anybody  else,  not  even  the 
worst  enemy  Yankton  College  ever  had.  There- 
fore number  two  stands  demonstrated." 

Professor  Shaw,  indeed,  was  at  this  very  time 
questioning  w^hether,  owing  to  the  prospect  of 
retrenchment  in  the  teaching  force  for  next  year, 
he  was  not  in  duty  bound  to  advise  certain  of  the 
advanced  students  to  go  elsewhere  for  the  com- 
pletion of  their  course.  Dr.  Ward  replied  that 
in  the  first  place  he  thinks  "the  advice  premature, 
for  it  remains  to  be  seen  what  the  teaching  force 
is  to  be.  It  would  do  no  harm  at  least  for  them 
to  wait  until  Commencement."  In  his  own  mind 
Dr.  Ward  was  relying  on  that  reasoning  quoted 
above  by  which  "deliverance  in  the  shape  of 
money"  was  coming.  But  he  urges  also  a  further 
argument,  no  less  characteristic  of  him.  "Second, 
and  for  stronger  reasons,  I  should  strive  to  havo 
them  see  that  they  get  more  than  an  equivalent 
for  lost  studies  by  becoming  a  part  of  our  Col- 

205 


JOSEPH  W  AKl)  OF  DAKOTA 

lege  in  its  formative  state.  I  am  given  to  proph- 
ecy at  times  as  you  know,  but  it  needs  no 
prophetic  power  to  say  that  Pound,  if  he  keeps 
faith  with  us  to  the  end,  will  be  a  greater  man 
than  if  he  had  taken  his  Junior  and  Senior  years 
in  an  eastern  college.  And  you  and  I  will  never 
see  any  better  character-building  in  Yankton  Col- 
lege than  is  doing  and  will  be  done  before  our 
endowment  and  buildings  come.  I  wish  my  boys 
were  read}'  to  take  the  course  now,  rather  than 
after  our  prosperity  comes.  I  know  that  these 
words  are  but  idle  tales  to  boys  and  girls  that 
have  not  the  faith  to  hear  them.  But  I  should 
labor  harder  than  for  endowment  to  make  them 
see  that  it  is  an  opportunity  that  comes  to  but 
few." 

It  was  at  the  close  of  that  year  of  disaster  fol- 
lowing the  affair  at  Des  Moines,  at  Commencment 
in  June,  1887,  that  there  occurred  the  graduation 
of  the  first  class  from  Yankton  College.  The  class 
consisted  of  one  member,  Edward  Hinman  Pound. 
("We  weigh,  not  count,"  was  Dr.  Ward's  pun  on 
the  circumstance.)  Pound  was  a  young  man  of 
high  character  and  ability,  who  studied  for  the 
ministry,  took  up  his  work  on  a  home  missionary 
field,  but  died  within  a  few  years.  The  scene  of 
that  first  graduation  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  those  who  were  present.  The  situation  of 
the  College  was  known  to  be  precarious.  To  the 
minds  of  some,  reckoning  from  the  darker  signs 
of  that  year  of  "fatal  policies"  and  falling-off  of 
gifts,  that  first  class  seemed  likely  to  be  the  last, 
or  one  of  the  last,  that  would  ever  graduate  from 

206 


THE  "TESTING"  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

Yankton  College.  But  to  Dr.  Ward  it  was  an 
hour  of  exultant  faith.  Those  who  saw  and 
heard  him  then  have  never  forgotten  his  look  and 
words,  when,  in  conferring  the  degree  of  Bach- 
elor of  Arts  on  that  single  graduate  of  the  class 
of  1887,  he  hailed  him  as  ^Hhe  first  man  in  a  thou- 
sand years." 


207 


CHAPTER  XI 
PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 


CHAPTER  XI 
PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

AFTER  that  year  of  crisis,  1887,  the  general 
attitude  toward  the  College,  as  developed 
on  account  of  the  Andover  Controversy,  be- 
came gradually  more  favorable.  In  the  crucial 
point  of  missionary  policy  conservative  leaders 
found  it  necessary  to  yield  ground,  and  the  tide 
was  turning  everywhere  in  the  direction  of  more 
liberal  views.  Dr.  Ward,  in  his  journeyings  to 
and  fro  in  New  England,  was  quick  to  feel  the 
change  coming  all  along  the  line.  "The  wind  sits 
in  a  different  quarter  from  two  years  ago,"  he 
writes,  confidently.  .  .  .  "The  doors  are  all 
open  to  us  now."  His  hopeful  mind  kindled  with 
enthusiasm,  not  only  in  the  assurance  that  the 
College  would  recover  from  the  blow  which  had 
been  struck,  but  in  a  new  vision  for  the  future  and 
greatly  enlarged  plans  for  the  Institution.  An 
other  encouraging  feature  of  the  time  was  that 
the  long-deferred  admission  of  North  and  South 
Dakota  into  the  Union  was  now  at  hand.  Congress 
having  passed  the  enabling  act  in  February,  1888. 
In  an  article  published  in  "The  Advance,"  Dr. 
Ward  proclaimed  that  event  with  a  ringing  ap- 
peal to  the  churches  to  rise  to  a  splendid  oppor- 
tunity. "Dakota's  hour  at  last  has  struck."  Po- 
litical  emancipation   is   gained;   immigration   is 

211 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

coming;  all  lines  of  business  will  be  quickened. 
For  the  "Christian  patriot"  the  great  opportunity 
in  Dakota  is  now  wide  open.  "He  sees  more 
schools,  more  churches,  more  Christian  homes. 
He  sees  the  elements  of  power  all  waiting  for  him 
to  use  in  making  Dakota  a  mightv  Christian  com- 
monwealth." 

But  the  change  in  general  attitude  toward  the 
College  was  only  gradual,  and  the  recovery  of  the 
Institution  from  the  disaster  of  1887  was  in  real- 
ity painful  and  slow.  "This  year,"  Dr.  Ward  said, 
in  writing  of  the  condition  of  the  College  early  in 
1888,  "is  like  that  of  a  sick  patient  creeping  back 
into  strength  again."  If  he  could  have  been 
spared  a  few  more  years  of  life,  he  might  have 
won  substantial  and  complete  vindication  for  the 
College;  but  his  health  was  failing  and  the  time 
was  short,  and  it  was  achievement  enough  that 
he  held  things  together  up  to  the  point  where  the 
College  77iust  be  carried  forward  by  others  after  he 
was  gone. 

Some  impression  of  the  desperate  straits  of  the 
Institution  in  1888,  and  of  the  loyalty  and  friend- 
ship of  that  member  of  the  faculty  who  carried  so 
large  a  share  of  burden  and  responsibility  at 
home,  may  be  had  from  the  following  letter  to 
Professor  Shaw: 

"Salem,  Feb.  12,  1888. 

"I  carried  your  letter  of  February  2  to  Provi- 
dence and  back  last  week  in  the  vain  hope  of  find- 
ing time  to  reply.  I  cannot  now,  nor  ever,  reply 
as  I  wish  I  could — for  such  a  letter  takes  a  seg- 
ment of  your  life  to  produce,  and  a  goodly  part 

312 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

must  come  out  of  my  life  to  respond.  No  letter 
has  ever  come  to  us  that  we  value  so  highly  since 
this  college  life  began  to  bind  us  together.  .  . 
We  were  so  comforted  by  it,  so  draw^n  to  you 
and  your  wife,  so  humbly  thankful  that  God  has 
given  us  hearts  so  true,  so  willing  to  endure  hard- 
ness for  his  sake,  in  the  same  cause  where  we 
are  putting  in  our  lives,  that  we  have  been  very 
confident  ever  since  getting  it,  that  more  than 
ever  God  means  to  build  Yankton  College. 

"Yes,  w^e  are  bitten  with  the  same  unbusiness- 
like 'madness,'  'folly,'  'nonsense,'  and  even  worse 
names.  They  have  been  flung  at  us  for  years. 
We  have  been  urged  to  keep  out,  to  get  out,  to 
drop  the  whole  thing,  etc.,  and  especially  rebuked 
for  putting  our  property  in  peril  for  such  a  ven- 
ture. 'You  have  no  right  to  do  it,  your  children 
must  be  considered,' — this  has  been  the  strongest 
argument.  .  .  .  Yes,  we  have  gone  through  it  all, 
and  far  more  than  I  hope  you  and  Mrs.  Shaw 
will  ever  be  called  upon  to  endure — more  than 
there  will  be  need  for  you  or  any  one  to  experi- 
ence. For  I  think  it  was  a  loving  Providence  that 
honored  us  with  the  choice  of  standing  at  the 
front.  The  little  patrimony  of  Mrs.  Ward  w^as 
in  such  shape  that  it  could  be  put  in  the  breach 
from  time  to  time  as  needed.  So  far  it  has  been 
sufficient  to  secure  needed  financial  results.  It 
is  now  all  involved  in  Yankton  College.*  There 
is  not  a  dollar  more  that  we  can  mortgage.     My 

♦The  Ward  house  was  at  that  time  mortgaged  for  $7,500 
to  secure  the  debts  of  the  College.  Afterwards,  by  action  of 
the  Trustees,  that  security  was  transferred  to  the  college 
grounds  and  buildings. 

213 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

life  insurance  policies  are  stuffed  into  the  same 
hole.  There  is  no  need  to  tell  of  the  close  quar- 
ters into  which  we  are  driven  by  this  way  of  using 
our  funds.  We  have  not  really  'suffered.'  We 
are  'in  debt/  however,  and  that  means  suffering 
enough.  Ultimately,  however,  we  know  that  no- 
body will  lose  a  cent  by  us  and  so  there  is  that 
much  mitigation  of  our  torture. 

"Now  where  is  all  this  going  to  end?  We  can- 
not do  any  more  in  the  line  of  giving  or  pledging. 
Xor  do  I  think  there  is  any  need  for  us  or  for  any- 
one to  do  it.  And  again,  I  do  not  think  we  were 
presumptuous  in  taking  the  position  we  did,  viz., 
we  will  put  in  ourselves  and  all  we  have,  until  in 
other  ways  God  carries  on  the  work.  I  think  so 
much  was  needed  from  someone,  for  mi  institution 
that  is  to  live,  must  Jiave  life,  as  you  say,  UteraUy 
life,  put  into  it.  .  .  .  The  money,  even  with  all 
the  pinching  involved  to  us,  is  the  very  least  we 
have  done.  It  is  not  worthy  to  be  mentioned 
except  as  being  in  the  line  of  the  same  stress  that 
has  come  to  you.  And  yet  the  financial  strain  is 
the  Avay  by  which  we  are  properly  tested  as  to  con- 
secration, and  sacrifice,  and  power  to  overcome. 

"How^  is  it  to  end?  If  there  was  ever  any 
reason  for  Yankton  College  to  be,  there  is  only 
one  way  for  it  to  end — in  complete  success.  .  . 
.  .  I  do  not  look  for  a  deliverance  that  is  going 
to  absolve  us  from  hard  work,  from  bearing  bur- 
dens, from  waiting  for  what  seems  to  us  a  long 
time  for  results  that  are  even  vital.  But  the  Col- 
lege will  never  go  one  step  backward  in  its  effi- 
ciency as  a  power  for  good  in  all  that  region — 

214 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

unless  we  deliberately  by  cowardice  push  it  back. 
.  .  .  I  Lave  no  atom  of  anxiety  for  the  future 
as  to  money.  Have  you  as  to  'life'  power?  Can- 
not you  and  I  (I  will  not  include  any  others  now) 
go  on  as  we  have  done? 

"Why,  the  bitterness  is  past!  That  came  last 
year,  when  those  who  were  not  of  us  left  us.  We 
lost  strength;  we  poured  out  some  good  blood 
with  the  bad,  which  has  made  this  year  like  that 
of  a  weakened  patient,  creeping  back  into 
strength  again.  We  have  already  given  lifCy  even 
more  costly  than  the  stopping  of  physical  life:  for 
many  a  time  it  would  have  been  a  blessed  relief 
to  die,  and  I  pray  to  be  forgiven  for  the  occasional 
cowardice  of  wishing  for  death " 

A  little  later  in  the  spring  of  that  year,  like  a 
ray  of  light  out  of  the  darkest  cloud,  came  a 
strong  financial  uplift  from  the  home  town. 
Yankton  people  had  always  given  liberally  ac- 
cording to  their  means  in  support  of  the  College. 
It  was  the  women  of  the  town  now  who  came  to 
the  front  in  the  interests  of  the  long  deferred 
erection  of  Ladies'  Hall.  They  held  a  magnifi- 
cent bazaar.  Hundreds  of  busy  hands  worked 
for  it,  contributions  were  secured  from  friends 
far  and  near,  everybody  patronized  it,  and  the 
affair  was  a  success  unparalleled  in  the  history 
of  the  town.  The  proceeds  were  about  five  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  the  building  of  Ladies'  Hall 
was  immediately  started. 

It  is  remembered  how  Dr.  Ward  "visibly  rallied 
under    it."     Although    no    other    reinforcement 

215 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

came,  and  the  debts  of  the  College  went  on 
piling  up,  the  encouragement  of  that  event  prob- 
ably confirmed  his  mind  the  more  in  that  vision 
of  larger  things  which  possessed  him  during 
these  last  two  years.  One  project  which  largely 
engaged  his  mind  from  now  to  the  end  of  his  life 
was  the  establishing  of  a  theological  training 
school  in  connection  with  the  College.  The  idea 
may  have  been  in  some  degree  an  outgrowth  of 
the  Andover  upheaval,  although  Dr.  Ward  cer- 
tainly had  no  thought  of  propagating  this  or  that 
disputed  theological  theory.  He  conceived  a 
teaching  of  theology  that  should  be  practical  and 
broad  and  in  sympathy  Avith  liberal  tendencies  of 
thought.  But  his  motive  above  all  was  to  supply 
training  to  western  young  men  of  consecrated 
purpose,  in  an  institution  on  western  ground  and 
identified  with  the  spirit  of  the  frontier,  in  order 
to  meet  the  demand  for  ministers  in  home  mis- 
sionary churches  springing  up  everywhere  in  the 
new  state.  Some  particulars  of  the  plan  may  be 
seen  from  the  following  passage  from  a  letter  of 
January,  1889,  to  Dr.  Newman  Smyth,  of  New 
Haven,  of  whom  he  is  inquiring  for  a  man  to  take 
the  headship  of  the  new  department. 

"We  already  have  more  than  twenty  men  who 
are  ready  to  come  and  study  for  a  few  weeks  or 
a  few  months  each,  and  then  go  out  and  work  in 
churches  and  Sunday  schools,  returning  later  for 
more  study.  In  this  way  the  ground  can  be 
taken  and  held  for  vital  Christian  activities.  Our 
present  faculty  of  five  good  men  are  willing  and 
able  to  do  much  of  the  work  of  teaching.     But  we 

216 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

need  one  man  to  supervise  the  whole  work.  He 
must  be  a  scholar,  and  yet  patient  with  those  who 
are  not  students,  yet  who  are  trying  to  learn. 
He  must  have  faith  in  God  and  man,  must  be  full 
of  inspiration  for  those  who  come  to  him.  These 
men  are  shrewd  level-headed,  warm-hearted  men, 
whose  lives  God  has  touched,  and  who  are  full  of 
zeal  which  needs  to  be  directed." 

Dr.  Joseph  T.  Duryea,  of  Boston,  one  of  the 
leading  New  England  ministers,  who  became^  a 
warm  friend  and  admirer  of  Dr.  Ward  in  these 
later  years,  and  who  heartily  believed  in  the  plan, 
was  besought  to  take  the  headship  of  the  theolog- 
ical school;  but  decided  instead  to  accept  a  call  to 
the  First  Congregational  Church  of  Omaha,  where 
he  would  lend  his  influence  to  the  enterprise,  and 
in  a  few  years  would  come  if  needed  and  give 
himself  to  the  work.  Another  friend  of  Dr. 
Ward's,  Professor  W.  J.  Tucker,  of  Andover,  gave 
enthusiastic  approval  of  the  plan,  and  various 
other  strong  men  East  and  West  gave  their 
encouragement  to  the  project.  Dr.  Ward,  seconded 
by  others,  strongly  urged  the  plan  in  the  denom- 
inational papers,  and  in  conferences  and  assem- 
blies of  the  Church.  He  did  not  fail  to  solicit 
and  secure  the  endorsement  of  the  various  so- 
cieties of  the  denomination.  Before  the  opening 
of  the  fall  term  in  1889,  the  plan  seems  to  have 
been  fully  settled  upon,  and  arrangements  made 
for  the  starting  of  classes  at  that  time.  Yet, 
after  all,  nothing  was  actually  done,  and  with  the 
death  of  Dr.  Ward  the  plan  fell  to  the  ground. 

Another  enterprise  of  Dr.  Ward's,  of  kindred 
217 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

nature  with  this,  was,  however,  successfully 
launched  about  this  time.  This  was  what  was 
known  as  the  Summer  Theological  Institute, 
closely  connected  with  the  College,  the  purpose 
of  which  was  to  afford  special  opportunity  for 
instruction  in  theological,  religious,  and  ethical 
subjects  to  ministers  and  others  of  the  region 
tributary  to  Yankton.  The  Institute  began 
shortly  after  Commencement  and  continued  for 
about  two  weeks.  Its  work  consisted  of  lectures 
by  a  group  of  prominent  clergymen  and  scholars 
from  the  East.  Two  of  these  Institutes  were  held 
before  Dr.  Ward's  death,  in  the  summers  of  1888 
and  1889,  and  a  third  was  held  afterward,  in  the 
summer  of  1890. 

Dr.  Ward  showed  magnanimity  and  states- 
manlike judgment  in  the  way  he  conceived  and 
carried  out  this  plan,  at  that  time  of  theological 
controversy,  when  he  himself  and  the  College 
were  under  fire  of  criticism.  He  invited  to  the 
platform  of  his  Summer  Institute  both  liberals 
and  conservatives,  the  majority  if  anything  be- 
ing of  the  latter  type.  The  list  of  lecturers  in- 
cluded, along  with  liberals  like  Dr.  Duryea  of 
Boston  and  Dr.  Meredith  of  Brooklyn,  such  prom- 
inent conservatives  as  President  Fairchild,  Pro- 
fessor G.  F.  Wright  and  Dr.  James  Brand,  of 
Oberlin,  Dr.  A.  H.  Quint,  of  Boston,  and  Dr. 
Goodwin,  of  Chicago.  These  Institutes  were  car- 
ried out  with  success  and  entire  good  feeling,  and 
doubtless  did  much  to  overcome  the  prejudice 
which  had  been  formed  against  Dr.  Ward  and 
the  College. 

218 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

Another  project,  in  line  with  that  vision  of 
larger  things  which  illumined  his  mind  now, 
when  the  immediate  condition  was  darker  than 
ever,  was  that  of  working  particularly  for  large 
endowment.  He  adopts  a  distinctly  new  plan  of 
soliciting  and  praying  for  large  sums.  He  has 
always  finely  appreciated  the  generosity  of  givers 
of  moderate  means.  Again  and  again  he  tells  of 
the  accompanying  word  of  encouragement  as 
meaning  more  to  him  than  the  check.  "But  now 
we  have  come  to  the  point,"  he  writes  to  Profes- 
sor Shaw,  "when  we  must  pray  for  large  things, 
and  specific  things,  and  expect  them."  Then  he 
drives  home  his  argument  by  that  spiritual  logic 
of  his — "The  success  of  the  past  which  God  has 
given  us  opens  the  way  for  them,  and  makes 
them  a  necessity.  So  I  have  had  in  hand  for  some 
time  a  list  of  names." — Then  follows  the  list,  as 
given  at  the  same  time  in  letters  to  Mrs.  Ward. — 
"Now  I  want  you  and  Mrs.  Shaw  to  join  Mrs. 
Ward  and  me  in  praying  especially  for  the 
|300,000.  There  is  just  as  much  warrant  in  doing 
this  as  anything.  It  is  as  easy  for  God  to  bring 
this  to  us  as  to  bring  the  driblets  that  come  now, 
and  a  great  deal  more  reasonable  to  expect.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Sheldon  are  with  us  in  this,  and  I  have 
written  to  Mr.  Bradley  to  the  same  effect.  .  .  . 
Now  let  us  be  brave  in  our  pleadings  with  God. 
This  is  no  time  for  timidity.  We  must  ask  for 
large  things.  And  yet  before  the  great  things 
come  we  shall  be  hemmed  in  by  the  Red  Sea  and 
the  Egyptians  even  tighter  than  we  are  now. 
'Bnf  he  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all  things, 

219 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

and     I     will     be     bis     God     and     be     sball     be 
my  son.'  " 

His  letters  to  Mrs.  Ward  are  full  of  tbese  plans 
for  larger  tbings,  and  radiant  witb  bope  and 
prayer.  "Deliverance  is  near.  In  God's  counsels 
it  bas  come."  Sitting  in  bis  room  at  tbe  Sbel- 
don's  in  Salem,  be  writes:  "I  wisb  jou  could  see 
my  picture  gallery;  all  my  family  looking  at  me, 
and  every  one  full  of  loving  cbeer.  I  am  sure 
your  spirit  looks  at  me  as  I  am  writing,  and  es- 
pecially of  late,  since  we  bave  said  so  mucb  of 
coming  to  God  in  prayer.  Tbere,  as  I  looked 
up  just  now  I  caugbt  it — tbe  look  of  love  and 
victory." 

But  victory  must  come  quickly  if  bis  eyes  are 
to  see  it.  He  is  evidently  witbbolding  somewbat 
of  tbe  facts  from  Mrs.  W^ard,  yet  tbere  are  suf- 
ficient indications  in  tbe  letters  tbat  bis  strengtb 
is  failing.  He  is  working  as  never  before,  as  if 
driven  by  tbe  presentiment  tbat  bis  time  is  short. 
He  was  a  man  wbo  naturally  found  time  for  a 
multitude  of  interests  witbout  sbowing  tbe  pres- 
sure of  baste;  but  now  tbere  are  days  wben  be 
feels  tbe  whirl  and  rush  of  work.  He  bas  "done 
one  day's  work  before  dark  and  another  day's 
work  since,"  attacking  a  great  pile  of  correspond- 
ence, while  bis  back  "aches  like  a  stone-bruise." 
He  is  beset  by  an  ever-recurrent  "tiredness.'' 
Walking,  and  going  upstairs,  are  full  of  dreaded 
pain,  and  to  be  avoided  when  possible.  He  sleeps 
and  rests  on  trains;  speaking  exhausts  him,  as 
also  important  interviews,  "whether  be  gets  the 
money  or  not." 

220 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

Sometimes  a  deeper  note  is  struck,  as  in  these 
sentences:  "The  way  grows  darker,  the  burden 
heavier,  the  deliverance  farther  away,  but  at  the 
same  time  I  am  kept  in  perfect  peace.  I  knoM 
the  dawning  will  come,  the  victory  will  be  com- 
plete, but  I  may  never  see  it  with  these  mortal 
eyes.  What  matter!  The  kingdom  of  God  will 
suffer  no  loss,  and  that  is  enough.  Last  night  my 
Bible  reading  was  of  Christ  stilling  the  sea.  His 
surprised  inquiry  when  the  disciples  awakened 
him,  'Where  is  your  faith?'  is  yours  and  mine  to 
hear  these  times.  .  .  .  But  better  than  deliv- 
erance is  faith  in  Christ —  so  'where  is  your  faith' 
must  be  my  theme.  I  will  get  me  ready  for  the 
night,  and  lie  down  in  peace  and  sleep,  for  Thou 
makest  me  to  dwell  in  safety...."  He  often 
speaks  of  the  raw,  damp,  New  England  weather, 
and  longs  for  the  brightness  of  Dakota  sunshine. 
In  one  letter  he  adds:  "But  I  must  not  complain. 
It  is  God's  rain  and  cloud,  and  He  knows  how 
and  when  to  send  them,  and  they  are  doing  His 
bidding.    May  I  do  as  well." 

Near  the  close  of  1888,  his  friend  Bancroft  pro- 
posed to  Dr.  Ward  that  he  join  him  in  a  trip 
abroad  for  the  winter.  Dr.  Bancroft  was  to  sail 
December  29.  Mrs.  Ward  and  other  near  friends 
who  knew  the  condition  of  his  health  did  their 
utmost  to  persuade  him  to  go.  "I  should  not  dare 
to  work  if  I  felt  as  'tired'  as  he  evidently  does," 
Dr.  Bancroft  writes  to  Mrs.  Ward,  as  he  and  she 
are  conspiring  together  to  bring  the  event  to 
pass. 

A  circumstance  which  seemed  to  make  the  proj- 

221 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

ect  more  feasible  was  that  just  at  this  time  Dr. 
Ward  was  in  near  prospect  of  securing  a  large 
loan  of  120,000  for  the  College,  which  he  had 
been  working  for  recently.  A  characteristic  cir- 
cumstance indicated  in  his  letters  is  that  Dr. 
Ward  probably  did  not  prai/  for  the  loan.  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  outside  of  his  program  with 
God.  His  prayers  were  for  gifts,  and  specifically 
for  large  ones,  and  those  prayers  were  answered, 
although  not  until  after  he  was  gone.  Yet  this 
loan,  which  he  sought  and  eventually  secured, 
was  a  very  practical  saving  stroke  for  the  Institu- 
tion, relieving  its  distresses  for  the  time  being, 
and  enabling  it  to  keep  on  with  its  work  until 
something  better  could  be  done. 

One  week  before  the  Bancrofts  were  to  sail  the 
success  of  the  loan  became  strongly  probable. 
"Telling  Bancroft  of  this,  he  and  Mrs.  Bancroft 
fairly  besieged  me  to  go  with  him."  The  tempta- 
tion was  very  strong.  He  exclaims  at  the  pros- 
pect of  "England,  Italy,  Egypt,  Palestine,  and 
with  Bancroft  of  all  men!  But  it  is  not  to  be 
done,  only  thought  of."  The  idea  of  indulgence 
for  himself  which  Mrs.  Ward  could  not  share 
was  hard  to  accept;  he  was  heavily  in  debt  and 
could  not  afford  it,  and  "it  would  not  be  honest 
to  use  money  in  travel"  which  he  really  owed  to 
creditors;  he  tries  to  argue  that  his  health  is  bet- 
ter than  it  was  a  year  ago.  And  then  the  work! 
He  must  not  stop.  He  is  eager  and  exultant  in 
pursuit  of  his  vision  of  larger  things.  And  after 
all  he  does  not  wish  to  go  to  Europe  at  this  time 
"because  I  am  just  getting  into  the  spirit  of  my 

222 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

work;  I  am  coming  to  the  proper  understanding 
of  how  to  begin.  And  our  College  is  soon  to  be  in 
the  throes  of  birth,  and  growth,  and  power,  in 
ever  so  many  new  lines.  And  I  want  to  be  'in  it,' 
and  so  far  as  I  am  able,  'of  it.'  This  new  life  will 
carry  me  along  with  it,  so  that  I  do  not  need 
Europe." 

At  the  last  moment  Mrs.  Ward  sent  liim  a  tele- 
gram bearing  the  one  word  "Go!"  but  to  no  avail. 

His  letters  of  these  days,  as  he  turns  his  face 
to  the  work  again,  are  filled  with  joy.  He  was 
with  the  Clarks  at  Salem  for  the  Christmas  sea- 
son. "Just  back  from  the  Christmas  service,"  he 
writes  from  there.  "De's  sermon,  taking  the  Mag- 
nificat of  Mary  for  his  text,  was  very  fine.  What 
a  contrast  to  the  keeping  of  the  day  even  a  few 
years  ago.  I  was  taught  not  to  keep  Christmas, 
and  as  for  gifts  on  that  day  they  were  not  so 
much  as  thought  of.  .  .  .  The  glory  of  the  sun- 
shine makes  the  day  a  magnificat.  It  is  just  com- 
ing round  the  corner  to  look  into  this  room.  I  fling 
up  the  curtains  to  take  all  that  will  come."  A 
few  days  later  he  is  writing,  "I  get  tired,  very 
tired,  but  rest  quickly.  Yes,  I  am  better,  not 
only  better  than  when  I  left  home,  but  better 

than  a  year  ago I  wish  you  could  be 

here  to  see  the  surf  at  Marblehead  to-morrow." 
And  again  he  writes:  "I  cannot  describe  it  (the 
beautiful  day),  but  to  have  the  winter  air  and  the 
summer  sun,  the  summer  sky  and  winter  earth 
without  the  snow,  has  made  a  rare  day.  Riding 
along  the  Albany  road  you  know  we  see  every- 
where hills  and  rocks  and  streams.    Everything 

223 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

was  beautiful.  For  a  moment  I  caught  something 
of  the  joy  God  must  feel  to  have  made  so  many 
beautiful  things.  Lord,  if  this  earth  can  be  so 
fair  what  will  Thy  glory  be!  My  joy  would  have 
been  complete  if  I  could  have  shared  it  with 
you." 

That  eastern  trip  of  the  winter  of  1888-9,  con- 
tinuing on  toward  the  first  of  March,  was 
the  last  that  Dr.  Ward  was  able  to  make.  Never 
until  near  the  close  of  that  journey  had  he 
yielded  to  the  idea  of  even  a  pause  in  his  work. 
But  at  that  time  he  writes:  "Just  now  I  feel  that 
I  have  used  up  about  all  my  vitality,  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  cause  must  stop  for  a  time  and  re- 
new my  strength.  But  I  hope  never  to  be  laid 
aside  as  a  non-productive  factor  in  the  world  of 
work."  No  large  gifts  were  secured,  yet  his  let- 
ters were  more  than  ever  appreciative  of  small 
ones,  and  of  the  kindness  which  was  shown  to 
him  on  every  hand.  One  of  the  happiest  ex- 
periences of  that  last  trip  was  his  reception  by 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  then  pastor  of  Plymouth 
Church  in  Brooklyn.  It  was  a  very  special  priv- 
ilege to  be  admitted  to  the  pulpit  of  Plymouth 
Church  on  an  errand  of  solicitation,  but  Dr. 
Abbott  was  another  of  those  leaders  of  the 
liberal  movement  in  theology  who  admired  Dr. 
Ward  for  the  stand  he  had  taken  at  Des  Moines, 
and  he  wanted  to  help  him.  Writing  of  that 
occasion  Dr.  Ward  says:  "I  waited  for  Dr. 
Abbott  in  the  vestibule.  When  he  came  in  he 
complained  that  I  did  not  come  to  his  house,  and 
then  took  me  into  the  chapel.  It  was  full.  He  said 

224 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

he  could  give  me  but  ten  minutes  at  the  end  of 
the  meeting,  and  my  heart  sank;  but  I  had  noth- 
ing to  say,  for  to  speak  at  all  there  was  a  favor. 
At  twelve  minutes  to  nine  he  very  pleasantly  in- 
troduced me,  and  1  began — to  condense  the  do- 
ings of  twenty  years  into  ten  minutes — and  did 
it.  As  I  sat  down  one  man  jumped  up  and  said, 
^Of  all  men  whom  I  have  wanted  to  see,  this  Dr. 
Ward  is  the  man.'  Then  an  old  army  officer  said: 
'I  wish  this  meeting  was  a  regiment  and  I  was  in 
command;  I'd  order  them  to  give  Dr.  Ward  a 
thousand  dollars  on  the  spot,  and  I  would  give 
a  tenth."  The  first  man  said,  'I'll  give  another 
tenth.'  Another  said,  'And  I  another."  Then 
they  waited,  and  Dr.  Abbott  said,  'You  need  not 
try  to  do  all  this  now.  I  am  going  to  give  Dr. 
Ward  two  weeks  and  a  list  of  all  your  names, 
and  he  will  see  you,  and  you  will  help  him  out." 
.  .  .  .  And  so  the  thing  I  have  wanted  has 
come  to  pass.  I  do  not  expect  a  great  deal  of 
money  now,  but  it  will  be  a  beginning.  ...  I 
am  tired,  ten  times  as  tired  to  have  done  this  in 
ten  minutes  as  if  I  had  been  given  half  an  hour. 
It  costs  to  condense  like  that."' 

After  his  return  from  that  trip,  the  truth  was 
no  longer  to  be  avoided  that  Dr.  Ward's  life  work 
was  very  near  its  end.  The  trustees  of  the  Col- 
lege took  steps  for  relieving  him  of  any  further 
labor  of  soliciting  funds.  Yet  during  the  ensuing 
summer  and  fall  he  kept  occupied,  part  of  the 
time  at  least,  with  characteristic  activities.  He 
was  abroad  over  the  State,  more  or  less  as  usual, 
visiting  churches,  attending  mission  conferences, 

225 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

and  the  like;  and  for  a  short  trip  taking  the 
stump  in  the  cause  of  Constitutional  Prohibition 
and  the  Constitution,  soon  to  be  finally  sub- 
mitted to  the  people.  In  August,  he  and  Mrs. 
Ward  were  at  Lake  Henry  together,  spending  a 
few  days  of  vacation  at  the  home  of  the  Rev. 
W.  B.  D.  Gray.  But  even  those  days  seem  to 
have  been  "busy."  He  drove  from  Lake  Henry 
over  to  Brookings  a  few  miles  distant  and  de- 
livered the  Commencement  address  at  the  State 
Agricultural  College,  which  Mr.  Gray  pronounced 
at  the  time  to  be  "the  finest  thing  he  ever  heard — 
and  more  praises  of  that  sort,"  as  Mrs.  Ward 
wrote  to  a  friend.  In  the  same  letter  Mrs.  Ward 
tells  of  a  drive  over  the  country  which  she  had 
with  her  husband,  apparently  from  attending 
some  church  meeting  in  a  neighboring  town.  It  ap- 
pears that  neither  of  them  are  spending  the  days 
in  idleness.  "The  drive  home  was  most  delight- 
ful for  me.  The  country  is  so  beautiful  all  around 
here,  and  then  I  had  my  husband  for  am,  hour  all  to 
myself,  which  is  something  to  say  these  busy  days, 
when  we  both  are  driven  from  morning  till  late 
at  night."  She  is  expecting  to  go  to  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  State  Association  of  Congrega- 
tional Churches  at  Mitchell,  and  to  make  ad- 
dresses in  several  towns  along  the  way — perhaps 
in  order  to  spare  Dr.  Ward  somewhat  from  such 
duties. 

While  at  Lake  Henry  Dr.  Ward  wrote  a  birth- 
day letter  to  his  sister  Sarah,  which  reveals  some- 
thing of  his  thought  of  approaching  death,  and 
of  changes  in  the  ways  of  religious  work  which 

226 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

he  believed  to  be  coming.  "I  have  been  thinking 
lately  very  much  about  death,"  he  writes,  "which 
is  growing  to  be  a  most  desirable  event:  not  for 
the  sake  of  escaping  work,  for  I  never  wanted  to 
do  things  as  much  as  now,  but  for  the  sake  of 
doing  better  work  and  in  a  better  manner  than 
now.  And  then  it  is  not  to  be  an  abrupt  and 
painful  change— not  half  so  much  of  an  inter- 
ruption to  all  our  plans  and  friendships  as  was 
your  removal  from  Salem  to  Topeka.  If  I  did  not 
get  a  great  deal  of  comfort  out  of  the  thought  I 
should  not  introduce  it  into  a  birthday  letter. 
T  anticipate  so  much  from  the  reunion  of  friends 
and  the  relief  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh  that  it 
is  really  the  fittest  of  all  times  for  such  a  letter. 

"This  old  earth  needs  so  much  done  for  it  yet 
that  it  will  take  more  than  one  of  the  'ages'  for 
the  saints  to  busy  themselves  upon  it,  before  'the 
end  comes'  and  'all  things  are  delivered  over  to 
the  Father.'  It  will  be  a  blessed  time  when  we 
can  work  directly  with  and  for  Christ  and  not 
under  some  'Society.'  " 

And  he  goes  on  to  express  his  belief  that  "vital 
changes"  were  coming,  "equivalent  to  a  revolu- 
tion," in  the  methods  of  the  work  of  the  Church, 
whereby  the  churches  themselves  would  assume 
a  more  direct  relation  to  the  missions  and  benev- 
olences carried  on  in  their  name.  Dr.  Ward  had 
for  many  years  been  strongly  critical  of  the  ex- 
isting policies  of  church  work  under  the  different 
societies.  On  this  subject  he  had  the  spirit  of  a 
reformer,  and  doubtless  a  reformer's  impatience. 
It  is  testimony  to  his  consecrated  sincerity  that 

227 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

the  officers  of  the  societies  loved  him  always,  re- 
garded him  as  a  tower  of  strength  in  the  whole 
cause  of  missions,  and  mourned  his  loss  pro- 
foundly. It  is  testimony  also  to  his  wisdom  that 
the  reforms  which  he  advocated  and  prophesied 
were,  in  a  measure  at  least,  brought  to  pass,  as 
evidenced  in  an  important  action  taken  by  the 
National  Council  of  Congregational  Churches  in 
1892.  "After  a  decade  of  controversy  sometimes 
acrimonious  concerning  the  conduct  of  the  execu- 
tive of  the  'American  Board,'  a  committee  ap- 
pointed three  years  before  reported  the  existence 
of  a  wide-spread  desire  that  the  societies  which 
were  the  agents  of  the  churches  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  their  common  charities  should  become 
more  directly  representative  of  the  churches  in 
their  constitution."  That  action  was  in  the 
nature  of  a  "vital  change"  such  as  Dr.  Ward 
prophesied. 

That  fall,  from  the  resuming  of  the  work  of  the 
College  in  September,  Dr.  Ward  was  not  able  to 
take  much  active  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  Insti- 
tution. He  attended  faculty  meetings  more  or 
less,  and  advised  and  counselled  with  trustees  re- 
garding the  work  of  the  College  and  plans  for  the 
future.  Now  and  then  on  a  pleasant  day  he 
would  put  in  an  appearance  at  the  College,  but 
after  a  short  visit  and  looking  around  a  little 
would  walk  back  home  again. 

On  the  10th  of  November  Dr.  Ward  preached 
at  Sioux  Falls,  and  was  entertained  there  as 
often  before  at  the  home  of  the  Phillips  family, 
oldtime  friends  of  his   and  of  the  College.    His 

228 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

letter  written  from  there  to  Mrs.  Ward,  one  of 
the  last  of  his  letters  which  have  been  preserved, 
was  as  follows: 

"Sioux  Falls,  November  9,  1889. 

"You  know  just  how  I  am  fixed  in  this  spare 
chamber  where  I  am  so  carefully  bestowed. 
Everything  is  just  as  it  was  when  we  were  here 
last  summer.  The  children,  however,  have 
plainly  grown  since  then.  I  had  a  merry  little 
time  with  Rossie  and  Josie  before  tea.  But  what 
do  you  think!  There  is  a  baby  in  the  house,  a 
little  baby  only  nine  months  old.  Mrs.  Phillips 
has  taken  for  her  kitchen  girl  a  woman  with 
three  children,  and  this  baby  is  here  with  the 
mother.  They  are  all  delighted  to  have  it  here, 
and  I  can  imagine  the  mother  feels  as  if  she 
had  fallen  among  angels.  This  afternoon  Mrs. 
Phillips  and  all  the  children  went  out  riding, 
asking  me  to  go,  but  I  was  too  tired  and  stayed 
here,  working  up  my  sermon,  and  getting  a  nap 
of  an  hour,  so  I  am  much  better.  I  am  going  to 
preach  to-morrow  from  'This  is  a  faithful  saying, 
that  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save  siners, 
etc'  I  am  rather  longing  for  an  opportunity  to 
preach,  and  on  this  subject.  I  think  it  will  be  a 
good  day  for  me.  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it  to- 
morrow when  I  come  up  here  after  dinner. 

"Good  night,  with  all  my  love  which  I  have 
been  too  tired  to  express  these  many  days  and 
nights.  I  hope  Margaret  is  better  and  all  the 
children  well. 

"Sunday  P.  M.  It  is  just  after  service;  the 
family  have  not  yet  come  home.     Mrs.   Phillips 

229 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

very  kindly  asked  me  if  I  did  not  want  to  come 
home  immediately  after  service,  and  so  after  the 
opening  of  Sunday  school  Mr.  Voorhees  brought 
me  home  in  the  carriage.  I  am  very  glad,  for  I 
am  tired. 

"I  enjoyed  the  morning  service  even  more  than 
I  expected  to.  I  had  'freedom,'  as  you  so  often 
call  it.  I  felt  too  that  the  people  followed  and 
appreciated  the  theme.  A  large  number  of  our 
friends  came  to  speak  to  me  and  inquire  for  you^ — 
the  Johnsons,  Shermans,  Kingsburys  and  others. 
'Uncle  Charlie,'  Mrs.  Phillips'  old  friend,  said: 
'That  is  a  good  gospel  sermon,  and  I  like  to  hear 
such.'    .... 

"I  wish  it  were  right  for  me  to  come  home  to 
you  to-morrow  night.  I  am  so  restless  and  un- 
happy away  from  you.  How  loving  our  Father  is 
to  let  me  stay  at  home  this  winter,  to  provide  for 
the  College  without  my  going  on  that  long  and 
wearisome  quest,  and  to  let  me  stay  at  home  is  a 
very  loving  thing. 

"Bedtime.  The  day  is  over,  and  I  am  m 
tired,  for  I  have  preached  as  hard  as  ever  in  my 
life " 

On  Thanksgiving  Day,  not  long  after  his  visit  to 
Sioux  Falls,  Dr.  Ward  preached  once  more,  at  the 
union  service  of  the  Yankton  churches.  There 
were  guests  at  the  Ward  home  that  day,  as  usual 
on  such  occasions,  and  Dr.  Ward  was  able  to  take 
part  in  the  festivities  and  games  according  to  his 
wont.  But  death  came  with  unexpected  swiftness 
a  fortnight  later,  December  11,  1889.  Dr.  Ward 
was   then   in    the   fifty-second    vear   of   his   age. 

230 


PUTTING  LIFE  INTO  IT 

The  course  of  that  fatal  malady  which  had  laid 
hold  on  him  had  undoubtedly  been  hastened  by 
the  great  and  incessant  labors  of  those  last  years, 
and  especially  by  the  burden  of  care  and  anxiety 
he  had  borne.  Yet  his  sudden  death  was  due  im- 
mediately to  blood  poisoninji,  from  a  carbuncle 
at  the  side  of  his  neck,  his  weakened  vitality 
quickly  sinking  under  the  attack.  His  mind  re- 
mained clear  up  to  within  a  few  hours  of  his 
death.  He  bade  the  family  good-bye  with  a 
special  message  for  each.  As  the  news  of  his 
dying  condition  spread  through  the  town,  friends 
and  neighbors  in  great  numbers  came  to  the 
house,  many  of  whom  he  was  able  to  see  and 
speak  with  in  farewell.  The  members  of  the 
faculty  came,  and  went  in  to  his  bedside  one  by 
one.  His  words  with  them  were  full  of  thought 
for  the  future  of  the  College,  inspiring  them  with 
courage  to  carry  forward  the  work.  No  deliver- 
ance had  yet  come  to  the  College,  and  its  pros- 
pect seemed  now  darker  than  ever;  yet  Dr. 
Ward's  faith  never  weakened  for  a  moment.  It 
was  God's  work;  of  its  ultimate  success  there 
could  be  no  doubt.  To  the  Rev.  Clinton  Douglass, 
who  was  then  acting  as  financial  agent  for  the 
College,  Dr.  Ward  had  written  but  a  short  time 
previously:  "Remember  we  are  satisfied  with 
what  you  are  doing,  and  there  is  no  other  way 
to  do  the  w^ork.  The  harder  it  is  for  the  present 
the  grander  will  be  the  result.  Be  of  good  cheer 
my  brother. — Yours  in  the  same  bonds."  And  to 
the  trustees  of  the  College  his  last  message  was: 
"Do  not  stop  anything  for  me.  The  work  must 
go  on  no  matter  what  becomes  of  the  workers." 

231 


CHAPTER  XII 
CONCLUSION 


CHAPTER  XII 
CONCLUSION 

JOSEPH  WARD  drew  men  to  him  in  the 
strength  of  a  wonderful  love.  Among  those 
who  came  to  see  him  at  his  deathbed  was  a 
man  who  had  done  him  and  the  College  much 
damage  in  the  Andover  matter,  one  of  those  Trus- 
tees who  had  resigned.  He  was  a  strong  man  and 
a  leading  citizen,  at  one  time  mayor  of  the  town. 
'Way  back  in  pioneer  days  he  had  been  converted 
under  Dr.  Ward's  preaching,  had  been  a  deacon 
in  the  Church,  had  served  with  Dr.  Ward  on  that 
first  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Hospital  for  the 
Insane,  had  been  associated  with  Dr.  Ward  in 
his  educational  enterprises  from  the  beginning 
and  had  been  made  a  Trustee  of  the  College  at 
the  founding.  When  this  old  friend,  whom  he 
had  lost  for  a  time,  came  to  his  bedside  Dr. 
Ward  was  unable  to  speak,  but  reaching  up  his 
white  hand  around  his  neck,  drew  him  down  and 
kissed  him. 

An  incident  that  is  also  deeply  treasured  in 
connection  with  Dr.  W^ard's  death  was  the  act  of 
devotion  of  another  oldtime  Yankton  friend.  He 
was  a  man  of  humble  life  but  big  of  heart,  one  of 
those   from    every   rank    and    station    who    had 

235 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

known  the  sympathy  and  counsel  of  Dr.  Ward  in 
times  of  trouble  and  temptation  and  sorrow. 
This  man,  who  was  a  devout  Catholic,  came  to  the 
house  the  evening  after  Dr.  Ward's  death,  and 
having  been  admitted  alone  to  the  chamber  where 
he  laj,  knelt  long  beside  the  body  of  his  friend, 
praying  for  his  soul  in  purgatory.  He  was  one 
of  those  Catholic  fellow  townsmen  who  were 
wont  to  speak  of  him  as  "Father  Ward."  This 
friend  was  a  painter  by  trade,  and  had  just  re- 
cently been  doing  some  work  on  Dr.  Ward's 
house.  For  this  he  was  unwilling  to  receive  pay, 
and  a  few  days  after  the  funeral  came  to  Mrs. 
Ward  Avith  a  receipted  bill  for  his  labor. 

So  it  was  that  hundreds  loved  him  as  a  brother 
and  friend:  those  who  had  known  him  as  a  guest 
in  their  homes  in  the  course  of  his  journeyings, 
people  from  far  and  near,  rich  and  poor,  who  had 
enjoyed  his  own  wonderful  hospitality,  those  of 
every  sort  who  had  known  the  uplift  of  his  strong 
arm  in  trouble,  parents  w^hose  wayward  boys  he 
had  helped  to  rescue,  students  whom  he  had  in- 
spired with  great  ideals,  teachers  in  the  College 
who  had  shared  with  him  in  sacrifice,  ministers 
and  missionaries  of  the  frontier  whom  he  had 
encouraged  and  strengthened,  strong  men  who 
had  labored  at  his  side  in  affairs  of  state,  and 
knew  the  unselfishness  and  deep  religious  spirit 
of  his  patriotism — all  who  in  these  and  countless 
other  ways  had  come  in  touch  with  his  genial, 
sympathetic,  inspiring  friendship. 

In  the  death  of  Dr.  Ward  the  town  of  Yankton 
and  the  whole  State  were  moved  as  never  before, 

236 


CONCLUSION 

and  in  the  East  and  elsewhere,  where  he  had  be- 
come so  widely  known,  his  loss  was  deeply 
mourned.  On  every  hand  there  came  notable  ex- 
pressions of  appreciation  of  the  greatness  of  his 
character  and  work.  In  Yankton  was  held  a 
public  memorial  meeting,  presided  over  by  the 
mayor  of  the  City,  called  in  order  that  "All  citi- 
zens of  Yankton"  might  "show  that  respect  for 
Dakota's  greatest  and  noblest  citizen  and  one  of 
Yankton's  best  and  truest  friends  which  they  all 
cherish  so  profoundly  in  their  hearts."  The  main 
address  of  the  evening,  by  Dr.  Ward's  friend,  the 
Rev.  Joseph  T.  Duryea,  D.D.,  of  Omaha,  brought 
home  the  lesson  of  his  life  to  the  citizenship  of 
the  community.  Other  addresses  by  prominent 
Yankton  men  paid  eloquent  tribute  to  his  char- 
acter and  public  services.  Judge  Hugh  J.  Camp- 
bell, who  had  been  so  closely  associated  with  Dr. 
Ward  in  the  struggle  for  statehood,  spoke  of  him 
as  "the  greatest  man  intellectually  as  well  as 
morally  whom  the  Dakotas  have  produced,"  and 
further  as  "the  most  noble,  loyal,  faithful  and 
royal  soul  whom  I  have  ever  met,  whose  more 
than  kingly  crown  was  the  simple  crown  of  ser- 
vice, to  you,  to  me,  to  all  of  us."  And  again  he 
said,  "If  South  Dakota  ever  rears  in  her  mansion 
of  statehood  any  statues  in  memory  of  her  sons, 
who  have  done  the  state  signal  service  in  critical 
times  of  danger,  and  helped  most  to  shape  her 
destinies  for  good,  foremost  and  highest  among 
them  all  will  stand  the  noble,  genial,  powerful 
form  of  Joseph  Ward." 

Public  memorial  meetings  were  held  likewise 
237 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

in  other  parts  of  the  state  in  honor  of  the  man 
who  had  wrought  his  life  so  richly  into  the 
foundation  of  all  that  was  best  in  the  common- 
wealth. The  monument  that  marks  his  grave  in 
the  Yankton  cemetery  was  placed  there  by  the 
contribution  of  citizens  of  the  town  and  state. 
Of  the  great  number  of  notable  expressions  of 
appreciation,  in  private  letters  and  published 
notices,  at  the  time  of  his  death  and  since,  a  few 
may  be  quoted  here. 

The  Rev.  Charles  M.  Sheldon,  D.D.,  of  Topeka, 
Kansas,  nephew  of  Joseph  Ward  and  famous  au- 
thor of  "In  His  Steps,"  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Ward 
said:  "Uncle  was  my  hero  as  a  boy  and  my  beau 
ideal  as  a  man.  I  know  that  my  love  for  him  was 
a  constantly-growing  feeling.  In  more  ways  than 
I  shall  ever  be  able  to  express  he  was  inspiration 
and  courage  to  me.  What  little  personal  power 
and  breadth  in  the  ministr^^  I  may  possess  I  owe 
to  him  unequivocally.  I  can  with  pride  point  to 
him  with  my  own  dear  mother,  and  say,  'they 
have  been  my  ideals  of  Christian  humanity.' 

"When  the  time  comes  of  writing  uncle's  life 
history,  I  wish  to  place  my  humble  tribute  with 
the  rest.  I  feel  as  if  his  eulogy  ought  to  be  writ- 
ten by  some  one,  and  I  wish  that  I  might  have 
a  share  in  it.  Thank  God  for  men  like  him,  who 
are  the  best  and  most  unanswerable  argument 
the  world  can  ever  have  for  the  reality  of 
spiritual  things." 

The  Rev.  A.  L.  Riggs,  D.D.,  Principal  of  the 
Santee  Indian  Training  School,  at  Santee,  Ne- 
braska, in  articles  published  at  the  time  of  Dr. 

238 


CONCLUSION 

Ward's  death,  said:  "No  department  of  Christian 
work  will  feel  his  loss  more  than  our  missions. 
We  have  hosts  of  earnest  sympathetic  friends, 
but  none  with  his  understanding  of  the  people, 
and  the  conditions  and  needs  of  the  work  among 
them.  From  his  first  coming  to  Dakota  he  has 
made  himself  acquainted  with  the  Indian  ques- 
tion, and  had  a  personal  interest  in  it.  He  would 
have  accepted  his  appointment  under  The  Amer- 
ican Board  as  Field  Secretary  of  Indian  Missions 
had  it  not  been  for  the  affectionate  protests  of 

his  church  at  Yankton 

"The  old  prophets  were  called  seers.  Joseph 
Ward  was  a  seer.  Many  thought  his  ideas  the 
result  of  a  sanguine  temperament  and  that  he 
was  too  sanguine  at  times.  But  it  was  not  that. 
He  had  the  spiritual  sight  into  the  realities  of 
things,  and  into  the  broad  thoughts  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  Thus  he  took  in  the  interests  of  a 
whole  state,  of  our  country,  of  the  world." 

Dr.  Ward,  in  his  strength  of  "faith"  which 
everyone  speaks  of  with  wonder,  was  like  one  of 
Browning's  men.  The  prospect  of  quick  or  large 
success  was  never  the  main  thing  with  him,  but 
rather  the  assurance  of  a  right  cause  and  the 
pursuit  of  it  with  invincible  purpose.  As  one  of 
his  old  friends  used  to  say,  "he  could  see  farther 
than  other  men,"  and  he  knew  how  to  wait.  An 
incident  illustrating  his  serene  disregard  for  mo- 
mentary worldly  success  is  recalled  in  a  recent 
letter  to  the  writer  by  the  Rev.  George  D.  Wilder, 
of  Peking,  China,  who  was  a  student  at  Yank- 
ton College  in  Dr.  Ward's  day.    "You  remember," 

239 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

he  writes,  "the  time  when  I  represented  the  Col- 
lege in  the  first  oratorical  contest  at  Sioux  Falls 
and  went  through  all  sorts  of  distressing  experi- 
ence on  the  way  there,  being  up  all  night  waiting 
for  trains  at  Elk  Point  or  somewhere  and  finally 
arriving  only  two  or  three  hours  before  the  con- 
test, all  worn  out;  and  then  came  home  with  the 
humilation  of  fourth  and  last  place  for  the  dear 
old  College.  Well,  the  most  comforting  thing  I 
heard  was  Professor  Shaw's  report  of  President 
Ward's  prayer  in  chapel  on  the  day  of  the  con- 
test. His  petition  was  not  specially  that  we 
might  get  first  place,  but  'that  our  representative 
may  be  pleasing  to  Thee.'  I  remember  that  it 
was  perhaps  the  first  one  of  many  things  that  re- 
vealed to  me  the  real  motive  of  Dr.  Ward's  life. 
He  did  not  seek  the  immediate  glaring  success  for 
the  College  or  for  himself,  but  he  worked  for  God 
and  the  right  without  any  eye  to  the  immediate 
praise  of  men  or  other  reward." 

The  Rev.  J.  B.  Clark,  D.D.,  Secretary  of  The 
Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society,  in 
a  letter  to  Mrs.  Ward,  said:  "We  feel  that  our 
whole  work  has  received  a  blow. . . .  Will  it  be  a 
little  comfort  to  you  to  know  how  highly  we  es- 
teemed your  husband  and  how  fervently  we  loved 
him  at  this  office?  As  we  felt  toward  him,  so  do 
all  the  churches  of  the  East,  and  countless 
friends  throughout  the  country  wherever  his 
work  is  known." 

And  in  a  published  article  the  same  writer 
said:  "Joseph  Ward  and  Dakota  can  hardly  be 
named  apart.    Each  belongs  to  the  other.    .    .    , 

240 


CONCLUSION 

For  Dakota  he  toiled  and  prayed  and  lived  and 
died.  His  last  visit  to  the  rooms  of  the  Home 
Missionary  Society  in  New  York  was  not  fifteen 
minutes  long,  but  every  one  of  them  he  spent  in 
pleading  for  more  men  and  more  churches  for  his 
beloved  Dakota.  And  Dakota  is  the  monument 
of  Joseph  Ward,  the  pioneer  missionary,  the 
Yankton  pastor,  the  college  president.  Over  his 
Dakota  grave  might  be  fitly  inscribed  the  well- 
known  epitaph,  ^8i  monumentum  requiris,  cir- 
cumspice.^ " 

Professor  Egbert  C.  Smyth,  of  Andover,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  a  published  article,  said:  "I  cannot 
refrain  from  expressing  my  great  and  intense  ad- 
miration for  the  character  of  President  Ward.  It 
was  noble,  through  and  through — large,  free, 
chivalrous,  heroic.  His  devotion  to  Yankton  Col- 
lege w^as  inspiring  in  its  enthusiasm  and  un- 
selfishness. And  how  pure  it  was!  He  could 
sacrifice  for  such  an  institution  everything  that 
worldly  men  prize,  but  nothing  that  saints  and 
heroes  love — no  good  cause,  nothing  that  seemed 
to  him  duty,  honor,  or  the  dictate  of  friendship. 
Yankton  College  has  in  his  memory  an  inestima- 
ble endowment  It  is  everything  to  an  educa- 
tional institution  to  start  under  such  a  leader- 
ship, and  the  College  for  w^hich  he  gave  himself 
in  unmeasured  sacrifice  and  toil  must  receive 
from  him  an  influence  and  direction  toward  all 
that  is  highest  in  thought  and  life." 

The  Kev.  Joseph  E.  Roy,  D.D.,  Secretary  of  The 
American  Missionary  Association,  who  had  form- 
erly as  Field   Superintendent  of  The  Congrega- 

241 


JOSEPH  WAED  OF  DAKOTA 

tional  Home  Missionary  Society  been  closely 
acquainted  with  Dr.  Ward's  work  in  Dakota,  in 
a  published  letter  said:  "Rarely  has  it  been  given 
to  a  man,  in  so  short  a  time  as  a  couple  of  de- 
cades, to  build  himself  into  a  commonwealth.  .  .  . 
The  first  men  are  the  historic  men.  Hereafter, 
whatever  line  of  historical  investigation  may  be 
run  up  in  this  state  it  will  find  the  name  of 
Joseph  Ward  associated  therewith.  And,  as  the 
years  go  by,  the  importance  of  those  formative 
influences  will  be  magnified.  This  man  touched 
all  the  leading  men  of  the  state,  governors,  legis- 
lators, federal  officers,  public-spirited  citizens. 
'Seest  thou  a  man  diligent  in  his  business,  he 
shall  stand  before  kings:  he  shall  not  stand  be- 
fore mean  men.'  Xo  more  conspicuous  example 
can  be  found  of  the  missionary  becoming  a  con- 
stituent factor  in  commonwealth-building." 

Miss  Frances  E.  Willard,  President  of  The 
National  Women's  Christian  Temperance  Union, 
in  a  characteristic  letter  to  Mrs.  Ward,  recalling 
a  recent  visit  at  the  Ward  home,  said:  "I  can 
see  him  so  plainly,  especially  as  we  sat  at  Sunday 
dinner  on  that  pleasant  last  day  of  our  visit,  and 
he  was  so  full  of  'gay  wisdom,'  brotherly  kindness 
and  good  will.  Somehow,  'I  cannot  make  him 
dead.'  Nay,  he  is  anything  but  that.  He  is  in- 
tensely, vividly,  vigorously  alivel  Blessed  broth- 
erly Heart!" 

Mrs.  Frances  D.  Wilder,  Treasurer  of  the  North 
China  Mission  of  The  American  Board  at  Peking, 
China,  a  resident  of  Dakota  in  early  days  and  for 
a  time  Preceptress  at  the  College,  in  a  recent  let- 

242 


CONCLUSION 

ter  says:  "With  high  ideals  for  Church  and  Col- 
lege, City  and  State,  he  was  always  hopeful,  ex- 
pecting to  see  them  realized  in  the  course  of  time. 
He  was  indomitable  in  purpose,  persistent  in 
faith,  a  lover  of  mankind,  sincere,  devoted,  un- 
selfish, triumphant  over  bodily  weakness,  always 
rejoicing  in  the  truth.  His  gentleness  made  him 
great;  it  was  the  gentleness  of  Christ,  full  of 
sweetness  and  strength.  The  heritage  of  such  a 
life  is  worth  more  to  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
his  adopted  state  than  all  the  wealth  of  its  fer- 
tile prairies  and  richest  mines." 

From  an  extended  editorial  in  "The  Andover 
Review"  of  January,  1890,  written  by  ProfessQr 
J.  W.  Churchill,  of  Andover  Seminary,  a  few"  sen- 
tences may  be  quoted.  "The  life  and  service  of 
President  Ward  receive  distinction  through  hi 8 
relation  to  religion,  education,  and  high  citizen- 
ship as  fundamental  elements  in  the  building  of. 
the  new  West.  His  true  position  is  among  thp 
moral  founders  of  states  ....  Christian  as  hf 
was  in  every  pulse  of  his  being,  he  believed  in 
the  claim  of  Christianity  to  pervade  every 
province  of  human  affairs.  In  his  view  Christian 
morality  was  the  only  stable  basis  upon  which 
a  commonwealth  can  be  reared With- 
out deprecating  the  influence  of  other  good  men 
in  the  state,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  during  the  last 
twenty  years  he  has  been  the  strongest  moral 
force  in  the  Territory  of  Dakota.  .  .  .  He  was 
a  man  of  ideas:  but  he  made  no  pretence  of  being 
a  guide  in  political  or  economic  theories,  or  in 
matters     of     merely     speculative     opinion;     his 

243 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

thought  was  pre-eminently  practical  and  execu- 
tive thought.  It  was  also  constructive  and  origi- 
nating thought;  wherever  he  was  placed  he  in- 
stinctively organized.  He  w^as  a  discerner  of 
character  and  rarely  made  mistakes  in  his  choice 
of  lieutenants.  Being  full  of  'mother  wit,'  he  was 
generally  equal  to  emeroencies  as  they  arose,  and 
never  seemed  to  be  at  his  wit's  end;  he  could 
drive  a  nail  where  it  was  needed  and  negotiate 
a  city  loan.  He  had  the  insight  of  his  clear- 
headed judgment.  He  saw  the  forces  that  con- 
trol the  present;  he  had  a  sense  of  the  tendency 
of  things  in  the  political  and  religious  world. 
Naturally  he  caught  and  was  controlled  by  the 

progressive  spirit Lying  close  to  the 

deep  seriousness  of  his  purposes  was  a  rich  fund 
of  humor.  The  faults  and  foibles  of  men  did  not 
irritate  him.  His  was  a  tolerant  spirit,  and  could 
discriminate  between  opinions  and  the  men  who 
held  them.  He  enjo3'ed  a  'character,'  liked  a  good 
story,  could  tell  one  and  had  many  to  tell.    .    .    . 

Children  instinctively  ran  to  his  arms 

His  unaffected  delight  in  the  beautiful — in  nature 
and  art,  in  thought,  character,  and  action — was 
one  of  the  strongest  elements  of  his  nature.  .  . 
One  could  not  truly  account  for  his  peculiar  in- 
fluence if  the  central  point  of  that  power  were 
omitted — his  close,  conscious  union  and  friend- 
ship with  the  unseen  Christ.  It  was  this  that 
penetrated,  multiplied,  and  enhanced  all  other 
talents  and  faculties,  and  made  him  a  fountain 
of  spiritual  influence.  Of  this  central  fellowship 
he  spoke  but  little.    Xo  man  was  ever  freer  from 

244 


CONCLUSION 

cant.  But  his  simplest  conversation,  his  un- 
guarded conduct  of  life,  produced  the  impression 
of  one  living  'as  seeing  him  who  is  invisible.'  This 
was  the  secret  of  his  serenity  of  temper  amidst 
engrossing  cares;  the  secret  of  his  remarkable  un- 
selfishness.   Living  or  dying  he  was  the  Lord's." 

The  Rev.  Dan  F.  Bradley^  D.D.,  of  the  Pilgrim 
Church,  Cleveland,  who  was  pastor  of  the  Yank- 
ton Congregational  Church  at  the  time  of  Dr. 
Ward's  death  and  for  a  time  Acting  President  of 
the  College,  in  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer  says: 
"Ward  was  a  prophet  and  a  poet.  He  gave  the 
state  the  motto  'Under  God  the  People  Rule.' 
I  know  of  no  finer  motto.  .  .  .  He  saw  a  great 
state  in  the  grass  land  of  Dakota  when  other 
men  predicted  wilderness.  He  fought  for  state 
government  when  all  the  eastern  men  opposed 
it  and  headed  it  off  in  Congress.  He  stood  for 
a  personal  piety  which  talked  with  God  as  with 
a  friend- — but  his  God  was  never  a  Judge  upon 
the  bench  or  a  sheriff  serving  a  warrant.  .  .  . 
Ward  was  one  of  the  gigantic  men  who  built  the 
West  by  sheer  personality  and  faith,  a  Pilgrim 
fit  to  be  recorded  in  the  11th  chapter  of  Hebrews. 
.  .  .  He  made  friends  among  the  noblest  souls 
of  his  generation.  Men  like  Duryea,  Fairchild, 
Quint,  Meredith,  Goodwin,  and  C.  F.  Thwing 
came  to  Yankton  in  summer  without  pay  to  help 
him  hold  an  institute  of  theology  the  last  year 
of  his  life." 

We  have  seen  how  Dr.  Ward  believed  that  the 
establishing  of  the  College  was  the  consummat- 
ing work  that  God  had  called  him  to  do.     He 

245 


JOSEPH  WAKD  OF  DAKOTA 

had  conceived  it,  not  as  a  separate  thing,  but  as 
belonging  essentially  to  all  the  rest.  He  believed 
profoundly  that  such  an  institution,  inspired  by 
the  New  England  ideal  of  education,  yet  open 
to  the  needs  and  growth  of  the  West,  was  a 
necessity  both  as  a  formative  influence  in  the 
pioneer  stage,  and  a  perpetual  source  of  Chris- 
tian idealism  and  leadership  in  the  future  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

It  was  a  work,  as  we  have  seen,  begun  and 
pushed  forward  on  faith,  in  the  face  of  difficulties 
that  would  have  overwhelmed  any  but  the 
strongest  spirit,  and  a  work  laid  down  at  last 
unfinished,  still  desperately  insecure,  but  with 
the  cry  of  "Victory"  on  the  lips  of  the  gallant 
soldier  who  was  destined  to  "die  without  the 
sight." 

In  view  of  these  circumstances  it  should  here 
be  noted  that  the  years  immediately  following 
Dr.  Ward's  death  brought  "deliverance"  to  the 
College,  in  answer  to  his  prayers  and  in  justifica- 
tion of  his  faith.  The  Institution,  at  his  death, 
with  property  valued  at  about  |110,000,  mainly 
the  accumulation  of  his  labor,  was  staggering 
under  a  debt  of  |35,000;  and  the  loss  of  the 
strong  leader  who  had  hitherto  borne  so  larg*^ 
a  part  of  the  burden  was  enough  to  fill  the  minds 
of  many  friends  of  the  College  with  foreboding 
and  dismay.  It  was  the  strength  of  Dr.  Ward's 
invincible  faith  in  that  dark  hour  which  rallied 
the  courage  of  those  who  had  been  closest  to  him 
in  the  work.  A  new  and  strong  appeal  for  funds 
was  now  made,  developing  presently  into  an  or- 

246 


CONCLUSION 

ganized  and  powerful  movement,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Rev.  W.  B.  D.  Gray,  assisted  by  Mrs. 
Ward  and  other  strong  helpers.  The  result  of 
this  effort,  extending  to  the  year  1895,  was  a 
total  of  over  $175,000  in  cash  and  pledges  to  the 
College.  This  amount  suffered  considerable 
shrinkage  in  actual  cash  proceeds,  and  it  is  to 
be  borne  in  mind  that  for  a  time  after  Dr.  Ward's 
death  debt  had  gone  on  increasing,  and  expenses 
had  been  heavier  than  ever  before.  Yet  the 
movement  resulted  finally  in  clearing  the  Insti- 
tution of  debt,  providing  an  additional  large 
building,  and  making  some  start  toward  perma- 
nent endowment.  In  this  period  the  "large 
gifts"  for  which  Dr.  Ward  prayed  so  bravely  be- 
gan to  come.  Dr.  D.  K.  Pearsons,  of  Chicago, 
whose  contributions  to  the  College  have 
amounted  to  |130,000,  was  one  of  those  who  came 
to  the  rescue  during  these  years.  His  willingness 
to  take  up  the  cause  of  Yankton  College  seems 
to  have  been  mainly  due  to  the  fact  that  Dr. 
Ward  had  laid  the  matter  before  him  previous 
to  his  death.  "I  will  do  something  for  Yankton 
College,"  Dr.  Pearsons  had  said.  Among  other 
large  givers  who  were  also  enlisted  during  this 
period  was  Dr.  E.  K.  Alden,  at  one  time  Secre- 
tary of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign    Missions.     Dr.    Alden    made    a    gift   of 


),000  at  a  most  critical  juncture,  when  the 
whole  effort  at  clearing  the  debt  and  founding 
a  permanent  endowment  threatened  to  end  in 
failure.  Other  gifts  by  Dr.  Alden  made  the  total 
of  his   contributions   amount  to  |16,000.       This 

247 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

strong  help  by  Dr.  Alden  has  particular  signifi- 
cance with  reference  to  the  Andover  controversy 
and  Dr.  Ward's  action  at  Des  Moines  already  de- 
scribed. Dr.  Alden,  as  Home  Secretary  of  The 
American  Board,  had  been  the  most  powerful 
personal  influence  in  the  stand  taken  by  the  Pru- 
dential Committee  against  the  Andover  men  and 
their  adherents  and  sympathizers.  It  was  under 
him  that  Dr.  Ward  and  the  College  had  suffered. 
This  noble  benefaction  by  Dr.  Alden  is  not  to  be 
interpreted  as  a  sign  of  relaxing  views  on  the 
part  of  that  strong  Conservative  leader,  but 
rather  as  an  instance  of  the  magnanimity,  char- 
acteristic of  strong  men  on  both  sides  of  the 
controversy^,  which  was  able  to  rise  above  the 
difference  of  faction  and  join  hands  again  in  the 
forward  movement  of  a  common  service. 

Following  the  period  of  "deliverance,"  from 
1895  to  the  present  time,  the  Institution  has  been 
under  the  presidency  of  the  Eev.  Henry  Kimball 
Warren,  LL.D.,  whose  energetic  and  progressive 
leadership  has  powerfully  advanced  the  work  and 
resources  of  the  College  during  these  seventeen 
years.  Under  the  administration  of  President 
Warren  other  large  givers  have  been  added  to 
the  clientage  of  the  Institution,  including  Mr. 
Andrew  Carnegie,  and  quite  recently  Mr.  James 
J.  Hill.  Further  buildings  have  been  added  and 
the  endowment  fund  increased  to  about  |240,000. 
To  the  list  of  large  benefactors  of  the  Institution 
there  has  been  added  still  more  recently  the 
name  of  the  late  Judge  Bartlett  Tripp,  of  Yank- 
ton.    Judge  Tripp,  who  died  December  8,  1911, 

248 


CONCLUSION 

made  provision  in  his  will  by  which  a  substantial 
residue  of  his  large  estate  will  pass  eventually 
to  the  hands  of  the  College.  According  to  reason- 
able expectations  the  sum  realized  from  this 
source  will  be  the  largest  single  benefaction  in 
the  history  of  the  College,  and  the  first  gift  of 
such  amount  to  any  philanthropic  object  by  a 
citizen  of  the  state.  It  would  seem  to  be  a  con- 
spicuous sign  of  the  fulfilment  of  Dr.  Ward's 
faith  in  the  future  of  the  College.  Judge  Tripp 
had  been  a  friend  and  supporter  of  the  Institu- 
tion from  the  time  when  Joseph  Ward  first 
solicited  the  contributions  of  Yankton  people  for 
the  College,  and  since  then  had  always  been  the 
one  to  head  the  subscription  list  whenever  the 
home  town  was  called  upon  in  a  financial  emer- 
gency. For  many  years  he  had  served  the  Insti- 
tution as  Chairman  of  the  Corporate  Board  and 
member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  and  at  all 
times  his  name  as  friend  of  the  College  had  been 
a  bulwark  of  strength  in  town  and  state.  This 
last  thought  of  Judge  Tripp's  in  making  provi- 
sion for  the  future  of  the  College  was  the  fruit 
of  thirty  years  of  acquaintance,  and  a  testimonial 
to  the  work  which  Joseph  Ward  had  founded  and 
which  his  successors  had  so  strongly  and  faith- 
fully carried  on. 

But  greater  than  any  endowment  of  money 
which  the  College  has  received  or  may  receive  is 
the  endowment  of  "life"  which  Dr.  Ward  put  into 
it.  In  remarkable  degree  his  spirit  lives  on  in 
the  work  of  the  Institution,  an  inspiration  to 
officers,  teachers  and  students,  felt  and  acknowl- 

249 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

edged  by  all.  The  anniversary  of  his  birth, 
May  5,  is  observed  by  the  College  as  Founder's 
Day,  with  exercises  in  commemoration  of  his  life 
and  work.  It  is  believed  that  no  better  lesson 
can  be  taught  to  the  students  than  that  of  the 
character  and  service  of  Joseph  Ward. 

At  Commencement  time,  1907,  was  observed 
the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of 
the  College,  with  impressive  exercises,  addresses 
by  distinguished  speakers,  and  a  general  reunion 
of  alumni  and  friends  of  the  Institution  from 
various  parts  of  the  country.  Together  with  uni- 
versal expression  of  love  and  honor  for  Dr.  Ward 
called  forth  on  that  occasion,  there  was  manifest 
also  on  every  hand  a  tender  and  reverent  affec- 
tion for  Mrs.  Ward,  then  living  with  her  daugh- 
ter, Mrs.  Edward  Gray,  in  the  old  Ward  home, 
but  by  reason  of  infirmity  unable  to  be  present 
at  the  anniversary  exercises.  Upon  a  spon- 
taneous suggestion  of  the  moment  a  singularly 
beautiful  tribute  was  paid  to  her.  Just  as  the 
academic  procession  was  forming  on  College  Hill 
to  march  down  town  to  the  Congregational 
Church  where  the  Commencement  was  to  be  held, 
a  quantity  of  flowers  was  sent  for  and  quickly 
distributed  along  the  line.  Then,  each  one  bear- 
ing a  rose  or  carnation  in  his  hand,  the  long  pro- 
cession, including  students,  alumni,  trustees, 
friends  of  the  College  and  distinguished  guests 
of  the  Anniversary,  marched  on  their  way  to 
Commencement  by  the  detour  of  Mulberry  Street, 
which  led  to  the  Ward  home.  There,  on  the 
veranda,   with   fear  rtkI   trembling  having  been 

250 


CONCLUSION 

entreated  thither,  sat  Mrs.  Ward,  surrounded  by 
her  daughter's  family.  Reverently,  with  un- 
covered heads,  the  long  line  crossed  the  lawn  to 
where  she  was,  and  one  by  one  in  passing  by 
laid  the  flowers  in  a  heap  at  her  feet. 

Mrs.  Ward  died  the  following  year,  November 
22,  1908.  Her  health  had  been  precarious  for 
some  time  past,  and  it  is  matter  for  congratula- 
tion that  she  lived  to  see  the  prosperous  round- 
ing out  of  twenty-five  years  in  the  life  of  the 
College,  for  which  she,  with  her  husband,  had  so 
devotedly  toiled  and  sacrificed  and  prayed.  She 
was  a  woman  great  in  her  womanhood  as  he  was 
in  his  manhood,  and  in  wonderful  measure  the 
co-worker  and  sharer  in  all  that  he  achieved. 
Her  name  should  always  be  honored  in  connec- 
tion with  his  in  the  appreciation  of  his  life  and 
work. 

In  1910,  at  the  great  centennial  anniversary  of 
The  American  Board  held  in  Boston,  a  noble 
tribute  of  honor  was  paid  to  Dr.  Ward.  For  the 
decoration  of  the  interior  of  the  great  hall  of 
Tremont  Temple,  where  the  meetings  were  held, 
there  had  been  inscribed  on  the  walls  the  names 
of  twenty-four  eminent  preachers,  theologians, 
missionaries  and  educators  of  the  denomination, 
covering  three  hundred  years  of  Pilgrim  liistory 
in  America.  Among  the  twenty-four,  including 
such  names  as  Jonathan  Edwards,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  Mary  Lyon,  Charles  G.  Finney,  Mark 
Hopkins,  and  Timothy  Dwight,  was  inscribed  the 
name  of  Joseph  Ward.  That  mark  of  honor, 
twenty-one   years    after  his    death,    with    which 

251 


JOSEPH  WARD  OF  DAKOTA 

neither  the  College  nor  delegates  from  South 
Dakota  had  anything  to  do,  is  a  reminder  of  how 
wide  and  deep  an  impression  his  life  has  made; 
and  his  enrollment,  as  at  the  hands  of  The 
American  Board,  among  the  heroes  of  the  faith, 
is  a  happy  sequel  to  those  painful  events  of  long 
ago  which  followed  the  meeting  at  Des  Moines. 


252 


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